BENOÎT XVI
AUDIENCE GÉNÉRALE
Mercredi 30 mai 2007
Tertullien
Chers frères et sœurs,
Avec la catéchèse
d'aujourd'hui, nous reprenons le fil des catéchèses interrompu à
l'occasion du voyage au Brésil et nous continuons à parler des
grandes personnalités de l'Eglise antique: ce sont des maîtres de la foi
également pour nous aujourd'hui et des témoins de l'actualité éternelle de la
foi chrétienne. Nous parlons aujourd'hui d'un Africain, Tertullien, qui, entre
la fin du deuxième siècle et le début du troisième, inaugure la littérature
chrétienne en langue latine. C'est avec lui que commence une théologie dans
cette langue. Son œuvre a porté des fruits décisifs, qu'il serait impardonnable
de sous-estimer. Son influence se développe à divers niveaux: de celui du
langage et de la redécouverte de la culture classique, à celui de l'identification
d'une "âme chrétienne" commune dans le monde et de la formulation de
nouvelles propositions de coexistence humaine. Nous ne connaissons pas
exactement la date de sa naissance et de sa mort. En revanche, nous savons
qu'il reçut à Carthage, vers la fin du II siècle, de parents et d'enseignants
païens, une solide formation rhétorique, philosophique, juridique et
historique. Il se convertit ensuite au christianisme, attiré - semble-t-il -
par l'exemple des martyrs chrétiens. Il commença à publier ses écrits les plus
célèbres en 197. Mais une recherche trop individuelle de la vérité, ainsi que
certains excès de son caractère - c'était un homme rigoureux - le conduisirent
graduellement à abandonner la communion avec l'Eglise et à adhérer à la secte
du montanisme. Toutefois, l'originalité de sa pensée liée à l'efficacité
incisive de son langage lui assurent une position de relief dans la littérature
chrétienne antique.
Ce sont ses écrits à
caractère
apologétique qui sont les plus célèbres. Ils manifestent
deux intentions principales: celle de réfuter les très graves accusations
que les païens formulaient contre la nouvelle religion, et celle - plus active
et missionnaire - de transmettre le message de l'Evangile en dialogue avec la
culture de l'époque. Son œuvre la plus célèbre, l'Apologétique, dénonce le
comportement injuste des autorités publiques envers l'Eglise; il explique et
défend les enseignements et les mœurs des chrétiens; il détermine les
différences entre la nouvelle religion et les principaux courants
philosophiques de l'époque; il manifeste le triomphe de l'Esprit, qui oppose le
sang, la souffrance et la patience des martyrs à la violence des
persécuteurs: "Pour aussi raffinée qu'elle soit - écrit l'Africain
-, votre cruauté ne sert à rien: elle constitue même une invitation pour
notre communauté. A chaque coup de faux que vous nous portez, nous devenons
plus nombreux: le sang des chrétiens est une semence efficace! (semen est
sanguis christianorum!)" (Apologétique 50, 13). En vérité, en fin de compte,
le martyre et la souffrance sont victorieux et plus efficaces que la cruauté et
que la violence des régimes totalitaires.
Mais Tertullien, comme
tout bon apologiste, ressent dans le même temps l'exigence de communiquer de
manière positive l'essence du christianisme. C'est pourquoi il adopte la
méthode spéculative pour illustrer les fondements rationnels du dogme chrétien.
Il les approfondit de manière systématique, à commencer par la description du
"Dieu des chrétiens": "Celui que nous adorons - atteste
l'Apologiste - est un Dieu unique". Et il poursuit, en utilisant les
antithèses et les paradoxes caractéristiques de son langage: "Il est
invisible, même si on le voit; insaisissable, même s'il est présent à travers
la grâce; inconcevable, même si les sens humains peuvent le concevoir; c'est
pourquoi il est vrai et grand!" (ibid., 17, 1-2).
En outre, Tertullien
accomplit un pas immense dans le développement du dogme trinitaire; il nous a
donné en latin le langage adapté pour exprimer ce grand mystère, en
introduisant les termes "une substance" et "trois
Personnes". De même, il a également beaucoup développé le langage correct
pour exprimer le mystère du Christ, Fils de Dieu et vrai Homme.
L'Africain aborde
également l'Esprit Saint, en démontrant son caractère personnel et divin:
"Nous croyons que, selon sa promesse, Jésus Christ envoya l'Esprit Saint
au moyen du Père, le Paraclet, le sanctificateur de la foi de ceux qui croient
dans le Père, dans le Fils et dans l'Esprit" (ibid., 2, 1). Dans l'œuvre
de Tertullien, on lit également de nombreux textes sur l'Eglise, que Tertullien
reconnaît toujours comme "mère". Même après son adhésion au
montanisme, il n'a pas oublié que l'Eglise est la Mère de notre foi et de notre
vie chrétienne. Il s'arrête aussi sur la conduite morale des chrétiens, sur la
vie future. Ses écrits sont importants également pour saisir des tendances
présentes dans les communautés chrétiennes à propos de la Très Sainte Vierge
Marie, des sacrements de l'Eucharistie, du Mariage et de la Réconciliation, du
primat pétrinien, de la prière... En particulier, en cette époque de
persécution, où les chrétiens semblaient une minorité perdue, l'Apologiste les
exhorte à l'espérance, qui - selon ses écrits - n'est pas simplement une vertu
en elle-même, mais une modalité qui touche chaque aspect de l'existence
chrétienne. Nous avons l'espérance que l'avenir nous appartient parce que
l'avenir appartient à Dieu. Ainsi, la résurrection du Seigneur est présentée
comme le fondement de notre résurrection future, et elle représente l'objet
principal de la confiance des chrétiens: "La chair ressuscitera -
affirme catégoriquement l'Africain -: toute la chair, la chair elle-même,
et la chair tout entière. Où qu'elle se trouve, celle-ci est en dépôt auprès de
Dieu, en vertu du très fidèle médiateur entre Dieu et les hommes Jésus Christ,
qui restituera Dieu à l'homme et l'homme à Dieu" (Sur la résurrection des
morts 63, 1).
Du point de vue humain,
on peut sans aucun doute parler d'un drame de Tertullien. Au fil des années, il
devint toujours plus exigeant à l'égard des chrétiens. Il prétendait d'eux en
toute circonstance, et en particulier dans les persécutions, un comportement
héroïque. Rigide dans ses positions, il n'épargnait pas de lourdes critiques et
finit inévitablement par se retrouver isolé. Du reste, aujourd'hui encore, de
nombreuses questions restent en suspens, non seulement sur la pensée
théologique et philosophique de Tertullien, mais également sur son attitude à
l'égard des institutions politiques et de la société païenne. Cette grande
personnalité morale et intellectuelle, cet homme qui a apporté une si grande
contribution à la pensée chrétienne, me fait beaucoup réfléchir. On voit qu'à
la fin, il lui manque la simplicité, l'humilité de s'insérer dans l'Eglise,
d'accepter ses faiblesses, d'être tolérant avec les autres et avec lui-même.
Lorsque l'on ne voit plus que sa propre pensée dans sa grandeur, à la fin,
c'est précisément cette grandeur qui se perd. La caractéristique essentielle
d'un grand théologien est l'humilité de demeurer avec l'Eglise, d'accepter
les faiblesses de celle-ci ainsi que les siennes, car seul Dieu est
réellement entièrement saint. Nous avons en revanche toujours besoin du pardon.
En définitive, l'Africain
demeure un témoin intéressant des premiers temps de l'Eglise, lorsque les
chrétiens étaient alors les authentiques sujets d'une "nouvelle
culture" dans la confrontation rapprochée entre l'héritage classique et le
message évangélique. C'est à lui que l'on doit la célèbre affirmation selon
laquelle notre âme "est naturaliser chrétienne" (Apologétique 17, 6),
dans laquelle Tertullien évoque l'éternelle continuité entre les authentiques
valeurs humaines et les valeurs chrétiennes; et également cette autre réflexion,
directement empruntée à l'Evangile, selon laquelle "le chrétien ne peut
pas même haïr ses propres ennemis" (cf. Apologétique 37), dans laquelle la
conséquence morale, inéluctable, du choix de foi, propose la "non
violence" comme règle de vie: personne ne peut manquer de voir
l'actualité dramatique de cet enseignement, également à la lumière du vif débat
sur les religions.
En somme, dans les écrits
de l'Africain, on retrouve de nombreux thèmes qu'aujourd'hui encore, nous
sommes appelés à affronter. Ceux-ci nous appellent à une féconde recherche
intérieure, à laquelle j'exhorte tous les fidèles, afin qu'ils sachent exprimer
de manière toujours plus convaincante la Règle de la foi, celle - pour revenir
encore une fois à Tertullien - "selon laquelle nous croyons qu'il existe
un seul Dieu, et personne en dehors du Créateur du monde: il a tiré
chaque chose du néant au moyen de son Verbe, engendré avant toute chose"
(La prescription des hérétiques 13, 1).
* * *
Je salue cordialement les
pèlerins de langue française, en particulier les Frères membres du Chapitre
général de l’Institut des Frères des Écoles chrétiennes. Prenant appui sur les
authentiques valeurs culturelles, je vous invite tous à témoigner pacifiquement
de la joyeuse espérance qui est vous.
© Copyright 2007 -
Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Tertullien : Entre génie
et hérésie, le père controversé de la théologie latine
Publié le 9/4/24
Il n’est pas canonisé et
il a même largement sombré dans l’hérésie la plus odieuse. Cependant son génie
est si éclatant, sa fougue si percutante et sa contribution à la théologie
latine si décisive que l’on n’hésite pas à ranger Tertullien parmi les Pères de
l’Eglise.
Qui sont réellement les
Pères de l'Église, ces défenseurs ardents de la foi chrétienne dont l'influence
perdure encore aujourd'hui ? Dans cette série, explorons avec le père Guillaume
de Menthière les figures emblématiques des premiers temps du christianisme, de
Saint Ignace à Saint Grégoire le Grand, en passant par Tertullien.
Avec Tertullien, la
théologie passe du grec au latin. Le brillant avocat de Carthage fait à
l’Eglise un don considérable : celui d’un dictionnaire. Nous saisissons dans
ses œuvres la langue théologique latine à son berceau, une langue ouverte,
frétillante de néologismes, de jeux de mots, de rimes, d’allitérations. Il
possède une qualité rare chez les théologiens : il ne parvient jamais à
être ennuyeux. Truculents presque toujours, ces textes n’en sont pas moins
profonds bien souvent.
Son influence fut
considérable. Saint Jérôme rapporte que saint Cyprien évêque de Carthage, se
faisait apporter chaque jour les œuvres de son compatriote en disant : Da
Magistrum (apportez le Maître).
Tertullien naît à
Carthage vers 155 dans une famille païenne dont le père est centurion. Il
fait de brillantes études de droit romain et acquiert une érudition immense.
Ses facilités lui permettent durant sa jeunesse de « vider jusqu'à la lie
la coupe des plaisirs ». Nature ardente et fougueuse, il se plait aux
spectacles grossiers et barbares de la scène, du cirque et de l'amphithéâtre.
Il avouera plus tard combien il a ri aux spectacles des chrétiens livrés aux
supplices ! Or c’est ce spectacle précisément qui devait amener sa conversion.
Il fut frappé en effet de l’héroïque constance des martyrs. Ils allaient à la
mort en chantant des hymnes à leur Dieu ! Tertullien comprit que plus on
persécutait les chrétiens, plus leur nombre augmentait. Telle est l’origine de
sa célèbre maxime: "Le sang des martyrs est semence de chrétiens".
Touché par le témoignage
des martyrs, Tertullien devient chrétien en recevant le baptême en 193,
soit vers 38 ans. « On ne naît pas chrétien, on le devient »
déclare-t-il dans un autre de ses fameux aphorismes. Tertullien est marié. Il
écrit même un livre à sa femme (Ad Uxorem). Est-il devenu prêtre par la suite ?
La question est disputée.
La fougue du nouveau
converti l’entraîne vers toujours plus d’intransigeance et d’exaltation. Dès
202 ses écrits commencent à se ressentir des influences de Montan. Cet
hérétique avait fondé une secte de purs et de « spirituels », méprisant la trop
conciliante et charnelle Église. Poussé par son caractère emporté Tertullien en
rajouta encore jusqu’à fonder vers la fin de sa vie sa propre secte encore plus
rigoriste : les Tertullianistes.
D’après saint
Jérôme, Tertullien vécut jusqu'à un âge très avancé (usque ad
decrepitam aetatem). Faut-il chercher là une excuse pour ce grand génie
qui a misérablement sombré dans l’hérésie ? Après avoir défendu l'Église, il se
tourna contre elle, parce qu'il la trouvait trop indulgente, trop
conciliatrice, trop laxiste. Est-il mort martyr comme il le souhaitait ? On
ignore tout de ses dernières années et de sa fin. Il nous reste son œuvre,
immense et d’une richesse inouïe. « Multa scripsit volumina » dit
laconiquement saint Jérôme –On trouve chez lui le premier emploi du mot
latin Trinitas, la Trinité (dans l’Adversus Praxean), le plus ancien
traité sur un sacrement (De Baptismo), le premier commentaire du Notre Père (De
Oratione)… On peut classer les écrits du carthaginois en trois catégories :
1) Les écrits
apologétiques où l’Avocat déplore qu’on puisse être arrêté pour le seul
motif qu’on s’est avoué chrétien : « ce n’est pas là le nom d’un crime,
c’est le crime d’un nom ! » Il pose les fondements de la liberté
religieuse : « Il est contraire à la religion de contraindre à la
religion, qui doit être embrassée volontairement et non par force ». Dans
l’Apologeticum Tertullien fournit un témoignage historique irréfutable sur
les terribles calomnies dont les chrétiens étaient les victimes : infanticides,
incestes, orgies, etc. A l’encontre de ces injustes accusations Tertullien
dresse un tableau émouvant des assemblées chrétiennes dans l’Afrique du IIe
siècle : « C'est surtout cette pratique de la charité qui nous imprime une
marque spéciale : “Voyez, dit-on, comme ils s'aiment les uns les autres ” »
2) Les écrits de
controverses où le théologien africain est aux prises avec des hérétiques
de toutes sortes. On retiendra l’immense Adversus Marcionem. Contre
Marcion qui méprise tout ce qui est charnel, notre rhéteur exalte la réalité de
l’Incarnation du Christ et la bonté de la Création qu’il chante en poète :
« Que je t’offre une rose et oseras-tu calomnier encore le Créateur ? (…)
Quoi ! tu veux que Jésus-Christ rougisse de la chair qu'il a bien voulu
racheter, et tu veux figurer indigne de Dieu ce qu'il n'eût pas racheté s'il ne
l'eût aimé d'un amour tout singulier ? ».
3) Ouvrages de morale et
d'ascétisme. Ce sont les ouvrages à la fois les plus édifiants et les plus
sujets à caution. Ne citons que le célèbre De cultu feminarum un
traité sur la toilette des femmes plus drôle que pieux. On croirait lire du
Molière ! Tertullien y proscrit pour ces dames toutes sortes de fards ainsi que
les vêtements de couleurs. Pourquoi, en effet, teindre la laine ? Si Dieu
l’avait voulu il aurait fait naître les brebis de couleur pourpre ou de toutes
autres teintes ! Pour dérisoires qu’ils nous paraissent ces arguments doivent
être resituées dans le contexte de la persécution : « Or je ne sais, confie
Tertullien, si des mains accoutumées aux bracelets pourront soutenir la
pesanteur des chaînes. ». La perspective du martyre redonne toute leur
force à des conseils qui n’ont d’ailleurs pas tous perdu de leur pertinence :
« Plus on s'efforce de cacher sa vieillesse, plus elle se découvre, écrit
par exemple notre moraliste, Voulez-vous ne vieillir jamais ? Conservez
votre innocence baptismale ! »
Pour aller plus loin,
découvrez également 10 autres articles sur les pères de l’Église :
Qu'est-ce
qu'un Père de L'Église
Saint
Ignace d’Antioche : ce qu’il a apporté à l’Église
Saint
Irénée : gardien de la tradition apostolique et héraut de l’orthodoxie
Origène
: pionnier de l'Exégèse et architecte de la pensée chrétienne
Saint
Hilaire de Poitiers : l'éloquence au service de la Trinité
La
véritable histoire de Saint Jérôme
Saint
Ambroise : le saint qui parlait aux rois
Saint
Jean Chrysostome : prédicateur ardent et Père de la Doctrine sociale
Saint
Grégoire le Grand : architecte du Moyen Âge chrétien
Tertullien. Dire Dieu un
et trois.
par Luc
Fritz
Après avoir présenté
l’homme et son œuvre, nous parlerons du montanisme, mouvement auquel Tertullien
accorda sa sympathie, puis du monarchianisme qu’il combat particulièrement dans
son livre Contre Praxéas. En un second temps seront exposés quelques éléments
facilitant la compréhension de la théologie trinitaire de Tertullien.
Tertullien a été un
polémiste brillant et redoutable. Ses écrits sont les fruits des luttes
incessantes qu’il mena pour défendre les chrétiens persécutés par les autorités
politiques, les catholiques agressés par les différents mouvements gnostiques,
les montanistes marginalisés et condamnés par ceux qu’il appellera les
psychiques (c’est-à-dire les catholiques selon lui hostiles à l’Esprit), la
Trinité refusée par les adeptes des doctrines monarchiennes, etc…
Ce cours voudrait
présenter quelques aspects de la théologie trinitaire de Tertullien. Celle-ci a
été explicitée en réaction à Praxéas, un monarchien unitarien qui, par des
manœuvres frauduleuses, avait convaincu Zéphyrin (199-217), l’évêque de Rome,
de revenir sur des lettres de communion qu’il avait données aux adeptes d’un
mouvement charismatique dirigé par Montan. Cette manigance avait provoqué les
foudres de Tertullien déjà montaniste :
« À cette époque, en
effet, l’évêque de Rome reconnaissait désormais les prophéties de Montan,
Prisca et Maximilla et par suite de cette reconnaissance accordait la paix aux
églises d’Asie et de Phrygie. Mais lui, ayant fait de faux rapports sur ces
prophètes et sur leurs églises et invoquant les décisions de ses prédécesseurs,
le contraignit à révoquer les lettres de paix déjà signées et à revenir sur son
dessein de recevoir les charismes. Ainsi Praxéas s’entremit-il à Rome pour deux
besognes du diable : il chassa la prophétie [le montanisme] et implanta
l’hérésie [le subordinatianisme], il mit le Paraclet en fuite et le Père en
croix. »
La présentation qui suit
se calque d’une certaine manière sur cette réaction de Tertullien. En un
premier temps, après avoir présenté l’homme et son œuvre, nous parlerons du
montanisme, mouvement auquel il accorda sa sympathie, puis du monarchianisme
qu’il combat particulièrement dans son livre Contre Praxéas. Le second volet du
cours voudrait donner quelques éléments facilitant la compréhension de la théologie
trinitaire de Tertullien.
SOURCE : http://www.patristique.org/Tertullien-Dire-Dieu-un-et-trois.html
BENEDICT XVI
GENERAL AUDIENCE
St Peter's Square
Tertullian
Dear Brothers and
Sisters,
With today's Catechesis
we return to the catechetical series we interrupted due to the Journey to
Brazil and continue to speak of the ancient Church's great personalities. They
are teachers of the faith also for us today and witnesses of the perennial timeliness
of the Christian faith.
Today, we speak of an
African, Tertullian, who from the end of the second and beginning of the third
century inaugurated Christian literature in the Latin language. He started the
use of theology in Latin. His work brought decisive benefits which it would be
unforgivable to underestimate. His influence covered different areas:
linguistically, from the use of language and the recovery of classical culture,
to singling out a common "Christian soul" in the world and in the
formulation of new proposals of human coexistence.
We do not know the exact
dates of his birth and death. Instead, we know that at Carthage, toward the end
of the second century, he received a solid education in rhetoric, philosophy,
history and law from his pagan parents and tutors. He then converted to
Christianity, attracted, so it seems, by the example of the Christian martyrs.
He began to publish his
most famous writings in 197. But a too individualistic search for the truth,
together with his intransigent character - he was a rigorous man - gradually
led him away from communion with the Church to belong to the Montanist sect.
The originality of his thought, however, together with an incisive efficacy of
language, assured him a high position in ancient Christian literature.
His apologetic writings
are above all the most famous. They manifest two key intentions: to refute the
grave accusations that pagans directed against the new religion; and, more
proactive and missionary, to proclaim the Gospel message in dialogue with the
culture of the time.
His most famous
work, Apologeticus, denounces the unjust behaviour of political
authorities toward the Church; explains and defends the teachings and customs
of Christians; spells out differences between the new religion and the main
philosophical currents of the time; and manifests the triumph of the Spirit
that counters its persecutors with the blood, suffering and patience of the
martyrs: "Refined as it is", the African writes, "your cruelty
serves no purpose. On the contrary, for our community, it is an invitation. We
multiply every time one of us is mowed down. The blood of Christians is
effective seed" (semen est sanguis christianorum!, Apologeticus, 50:
13).
Martyrdom, suffering for
the truth, is in the end victorious and more efficient than the cruelty and
violence of totalitarian regimes.
But Tertullian, as every
good apologist, at the same time sensed the need to communicate the essence of
Christianity positively. This is why he adopted the speculative method to
illustrate the rational foundations of Christian dogma. He developed it in a
systematic way, beginning with the description of "the God of the
Christians": "He whom we adore", the Apologist wrote, "is
the one, only God". And he continued, using antitheses and paradoxes
characteristic of his language: "He is invisible, even if you see him,
difficult to grasp, even if he is present through grace; inconceivable even if
the human senses can perceive him, therefore, he is true and great!"
(cf. ibid., 17: 1-2).
Furthermore, Tertullian
takes an enormous step in the development of Trinitarian dogma. He has given us
an appropriate way to express this great mystery in Latin by introducing the
terms "one substance" and "three Persons". In a similar
way, he also greatly developed the correct language to express the mystery of
Christ, Son of God and true Man.
The Holy Spirit is also
considered in the African's writings, demonstrating his personal and divine
character: "We believe that, according to his promise, Jesus Christ sent,
by means of his Father, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the
faith of all those who believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (ibid.,
2: 1).
Again, there are in
Tertullian's writings numerous texts on the Church, whom he always recognizes
as "mother". Even after his acceptance of Montanism, he did not
forget that the Church is the Mother of our faith and Christian life.
He even considers the
moral conduct of Christians and the future life. His writings are important as
they also show the practical trends in the Christian community regarding Mary
Most Holy, the Sacraments of the Eucharist, Matrimony and Reconciliation,
Petrine primacy, prayer.... In a special way, in those times of persecution
when Christians seemed to be a lost minority, the Apologist exhorted them to
hope, which in his treatises is not simply a virtue in itself, but something
that involves every aspect of Christian existence.
We have the hope that the
future is ours because the future is God's. Therefore, the Lord's Resurrection
is presented as the foundation of our future resurrection and represents the
main object of the Christian's confidence: "And so the flesh
shall rise again", the African categorically affirms, "wholly in
every man, in its own identity, in its absolute integrity. Wherever it may be,
it is in safe keeping in God's presence, through that most faithful Mediator
between God and man, Jesus Christ, who shall reconcile both God to man, and man
to God" (Concerning the Resurrection of the Flesh, 63: 1).
From the human viewpoint
one can undoubtedly speak of Tertullian's own drama. With the passing of years
he became increasingly exigent in regard to the Christians. He demanded heroic
behaviour from them in every circumstance, above all under persecution.
Rigid in his positions,
he did not withhold blunt criticism and he inevitably ended by finding himself
isolated.
Besides, many questions
still remain open today, not only on Tertullian's theological and philosophical
thought, but also on his attitude in regard to political institutions and pagan
society.
This great moral and
intellectual personality, this man who made such a great contribution to
Christian thought, makes me think deeply. One sees that in the end he lacked
the simplicity, the humility to integrate himself with the Church, to accept
his weaknesses, to be forbearing with others and himself.
When one only sees his
thought in all its greatness, in the end, it is precisely this greatness that
is lost. The essential characteristic of a great theologian is the humility to
remain with the Church, to accept his own and others' weaknesses, because
actually only God is all holy. We, instead, always need forgiveness.
Finally, the African
remains an interesting witness of the early times of the Church, when
Christians found they were the authentic protagonists of a "new
culture" in the critical confrontation between the classical heritage and
the Gospel message.
In his famous affirmation
according to which our soul "is naturally Christian" (Apologeticus 17:
6), Tertullian evokes the perennial continuity between authentic human values
and Christian ones. Also in his other reflection borrowed directly from the
Gospel, according to which "the Christian cannot hate, not even his
enemies" (cf. Apologeticus 37), is found the unavoidable moral
resolve, the choice of faith which proposes "non-violence" as the
rule of life. Indeed, no one can escape the dramatic aptness of this teaching,
also in light of the heated debate on religions.
In summary, the treatises
of this African trace many themes that we are still called to face today. They
involve us in a fruitful interior examination to which I exhort all the
faithful, so that they may know how to express in an always more convincing
manner the Rule of faith, which - again, referring to Tertullian -
"prescribes the belief that there is only one God and that he is none
other than the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing
through his own Word, generated before all things" (cf. Concerning
the Prescription of Heretics, 13: 1).
To special groups
I am pleased to greet the
English-speaking pilgrims, including participants in a seminar organized by the
Lay Centre "Foyer Unitas", graduates of the Classical Lyceum of Turku
and pilgrims from the parish of the Immaculate Conception in Devizes. Upon you
and your loved ones, I invoke the grace and peace of Almighty God.
Lastly, I greet the sick,
newly-weds and young people.... Recalling Pentecost, which we
just celebrated last Sunday, I exhort you, dear young people, to
constantly invoke the Holy Spirit, so that you may be Christ's intrepid
apostles among your contemporaries. May the Consoler Spirit help you,
dear sick people, to accept suffering and sickness, offering it to
God with faith for the salvation of all people, and may he grant you,
dear newly-weds, the joy to build your family on the Gospel's solid
foundation.
© Copyright 2007 -
Libreria Editrice Vaticana
TERTULLIAN
(QUINTUS SEPTIMIUS
FLORENS TERTULLIANUS).
Ecclesiastical writer in
the second and third centuries, b. probably about 160 at Carthage,
being the son of a centurion in
the proconsular service. He was evidently by profession an advocate in the
law-courts, and he shows a close acquaintance with the procedure and terms
of Roman
law, though it is doubtful whether
he is to be identified with a jurist Tertullian who is cited in the Pandects.
He knew Greek as
well as Latin, and wrote works in Greek which have not come down
to us. A pagan until
middle life, he had shared the pagan prejudices
against Christianity,
and had indulged like others in shameful pleasures.
His conversion was not later than the year 197, and may have been
earlier. He embraced the Faith with all the ardour of his
impetuous nature. He became a priest,
no doubt of
the Church of Carthage.
Monceaux, followed by d'Ales, considers that his earlier writings were
composed while he was yet a layman,
and if this be so, then his ordination was
about 200. His extant writings range in date from the apologetics of
197 to the attack on a bishop who
is probably Pope Callistus (after 218). It was after the year 206
that he joined the Montanist sect,
and he seems to have definitively separated from the Church about
211 (Harnack) or 213 (Monceaux). After writing more virulently against
the Church than
even against heathen and persecutors,
he separated from the Montanists and
founded a sect of
his own. The remnant of the Tertullianists was reconciled to the Church by St.
Augustine. A number of the works of Tertullian are on special points of belief or discipline.
According to St.
Jerome he lived to extreme old age.
The year 197 saw the
publication of a short address by Tertullian, "To the Martyrs", and
of his great apologetic works, the "Ad nationes" and the
"Apologeticus". The former has been considered a finished sketch for
the latter; but it is more true to
say that the second work has a different purpose, though a great deal of the
same matter occurs in both, the same arguments being displayed in the
same manner, with the same examples and even the same phrases.
The appeal to the nations suffers from its transmission in a
single codex, in which omissions of a word or several words or whole lines
are to be deplored. Tertullian's style is difficult enough without such super
added causes of obscurity. But the text of the "Ad
nationes" must have been always rougher than that of the
"Apologeticus", which is a more careful as well as a more perfect work,
and contains more matter because of its better arrangement; for it
is just the same length as the two books "Ad nationes".
The "Ad
nationes" has for its entire object the refutation of calumnies against Christians.
In the first place they are proved to
repose on unreasoning hatred only;
the procedure of trial is illogical; the offence is nothing but the
name of Christian,
which ought rather to be a title of honour;
no proof is
forthcoming of any crimes, only rumour; the
first persecutor was Nero,
the worst of emperors. Secondly, the individual charges are met;
Tertullian challenges the reader to believe in
anything so contrary to nature as the accusations of infanticide and incest. Christians are
not the causes of earthquakes and floods and famine, for these
happened long before Christianity.
The pagans despise their
own gods, banish them, forbid their worship, mock them on the stage; the
poets tell horrid stories of them; they were in reality
only men, and bad men. You say
we worship an ass's head, he goes on, but you worship all
kinds of animals; your gods are images made on
a cross framework, so you worship crosses. You say
we worship the sun; so do you. A certain Jew hawked about
a caricature of a creature half ass, half goat, as our god; but you
actually adore half-animals. As for infanticide,
you expose your own children and kill the unborn. Your
promiscuous lust causes you
to be in danger of the incest of which you accuse us. We do not swear
by the genius of Caesar, but we are loyal, for we pray for
him, whereas you revolt. Caesar does not want to be a god; he
prefers to be alive. You say it is through obstinacy that
we despise death; but of old such contempt of death was
esteemed heroic
virtue. Many among you brave death
for gain or wagers; but we, because we believe in judgment.
Finally, do us justice;
examine our case, and change your minds.
The second book consists entirely in an attack on the gods of the pagans;
they are marshalled in classes after Varro. It was not, urges the apologist,
owing to these multitudinous gods that the empire grew.
Out of this
fierce appeal and indictment was developed the grander
"Apologeticus", addressed to the rulers of the empire and
the administrators of justice.
The former work attacked popular prejudices; the new one is an imitation of
the Greek Apologies, and was intended as an attempt to secure an
amelioration in the treatment of Christians by
alteration of the law or
its administration. Tertullian cannot restrain his invective; yet he wishes to
be conciliating, and it breaks out in spite of his argument, instead of being
its essence as before. He begins again by
an appeal to reason. There are no witnesses, he urges,
to prove our crimes; Trajan ordered
Pliny not to seek us out, but yet to punish us if we were known; — what a
paralogism! The actual procedure is yet more strange. Instead of being tortured
until was confess, we are tortured until we deny. So far the "Ad
Nationes" is merely developed and strengthened. Then, after a condensed
summary of the second book as to the heathen gods,
Tertullian begins in chapter xvii an exposition of the belief of Christians in
one God,
the Creator, invisible, infinite,
to whom the soul of man,
which by nature is inclined to Christianity,
bears witness. The floods and the fires have been His messengers. We have
a testimony, he adds, from our sacred books, which are older than all
your gods. Fulfilled prophecy is the proof that
they are divine. It is then explained that Christ is God,
the Word
of God born of a virgin; His two comings, His miracles, passion, resurrection,
and forty days with the disciples, are recounted.
The disciples spread His doctrine throughout
the world; Nero sowed
it with blood at Rome.
When tortured the Christian cries,
"We worship God through Christ".
The demons confess Him and they stir men up against
us. Next, loyalty to Cæsar is discussed at greater length than before. When the
populace rises, how easily the Christians could
take vengeance: "We are but of yesterday, yet we fill your cities,
islands, forts, towns, councils, even camps, tribes, decuries, the palace,
the senate, the forum; we have left you the temples alone".
We might migrate, and leave you in shame and in desolation. We ought at
least to be tolerated; for what are we? — a body compacted by community
of religion, of discipline, and of hope. We meet together
to pray,
even for the emperors and authorities, to hear readings from
the holy books and exhortations. We judge and separate
those who fall into crime. We have elders of proved virtue to
preside. Our common fund is replenished by voluntary donations each
month, and is expended not on gluttony but
on the poor and suffering. This charity is quoted against
us as a disgrace; see, it is said, how they love one
another. We call ourselves brethren; you also are our brethren by nature,
but bad brethren. We are accused of every calamity. Yet we live with you; we
avoid no profession, but those of assassins, sorcerers, and such like. You
spare the philosophers,
though their conduct is less admirable than ours. They confess that
our teaching is older than theirs, for nothing is older than truth.
The resurrection at
which you jeer has many parallels in nature. You think us fools; and we
rejoice to suffer for this. We conquer by our death. Inquire into
the cause of our constancy. We believe this martyrdom to
be the remission of all offences, and that he who is condemned before your
tribunal is absolved before God.
These points are all
urged with infinite wit
and pungency. The faults are obvious. The effect on the pagans may
have been rather to irritate than to convince. The very brevity results in
obscurity. But every lover of eloquence, and there were many in those days,
will have relished with the pleasure of an epicure the feast of
ingenious pleading and recondite learning. The rapier thrusts are so
swift, we can hardly realize their deadliness before they are renewed in
showers, with sometimes a blow as of a bludgeon to vary the effect. The style
is compressed like that of Tacitus, but the metrical closes are observed with
care, against the rule of Tacitus; and that wonderful maker of phrases is
outdone by his Christian successor in gemlike sentences which
will be quoted while the world lasts. Who does not know the anima
naturaliter Christiana (soul by nature Christian);
the Vide, inquiunt, ut invicem se diligant (see they exclaim, how
they love one
another), and the Semen est sanguis Christianorum (The blood of Christians is
seed)? It was probably about the same time that Tertullian developed his thesis
of the "Testimony of the Soul" to the existence
of one God, in his little book with this title. With his usual eloquence he
enlarges on the idea that
common speech bids us use expressions such as "God grant", or
"If God will",
"God bless",
"God sees",
"May God repay".
The soul testifies
also to devils, to just vengeance, and to its own immortality.
Two or three years later
(about 200) Tertullian assaulted heresy in
a treatise even more brilliant, which, unlike the "Apologeticus", is
not for his own day only but for all time. It is called "Liber de
praescriptione haereticorum". Prescription now means
the right obtained to something by long usage. In Roman
law the signification was wider; it meant the cutting short
of a question by the refusal to hear the adversary's arguments, on the ground
of an anterior point which must cut away the ground under his feet. So
Tertullian deals with heresies:
it is of no use to listen to their arguments or refute them, for we have a
number of antecedent proofs that
they cannot deserve a hearing. Heresies, he begins, must not astonish us,
for they were prophesied. Heretics urge the text, "Seek and
ye shall find", but this was not said to Christians;
we have a rule
of faith to be accepted without question. "Let curiosity give
place to faith and vain glory make way for salvation", so
Tertullian parodies a line of Cicero's. The heretics argue
out of Scripture; but, first, we are forbidden to consort with a heretic after
one rebuke has been delivered, and secondly, disputation results only in blasphemy on
the one side and indignation on the other, while the listener goes away more
puzzled than he came. The real question is, "To whom does the Faith belong?
Whose are the Scriptures? By whom, through whom, when and to whom has been
handed down the discipline by which we are Christians?
The answer is plain: Christ sent His apostles, who
founded churches in each city, from which the others have borrowed
the tradition of the Faith and the seed of doctrine and
daily borrow in order to become churches; so that they also
are Apostolic in that they are the offspring of the Apostolic
churches. All are that one Church which
the Apostles founded, so long as peace and intercommunion are
observed [dum est illis communicatio pacis et appellatio fraternitatis et
contesseratio hospitalitatis]. Therefore the testimony to the truth is
this: We communicate with the apostolic Churches". The heretics will reply
that the Apostles did not know all
the truth.
Could anything be unknown to Peter, who was called the rock on which
the Church was
to be built? or to John, who lay on the Lord's breast? But
they will say, the churches have erred.
Some indeed went wrong, and were corrected by the Apostle;
though for others he had nothing but praise. "But let us admit that all
have erred:—
is it credible that all these great churches should have strayed into
the same faith"?
Admitting this absurdity, then all the baptisms, spiritual gifts, miracles, martyrdoms,
were in vain until Marcion and Valentinus appeared
at last! Truth will be younger than error;
for both these heresiarchs are of yesterday, and were still Catholics at Rome in
the episcopate of Eleutherius (this name is a slip or
a false reading). Anyhow the heresies are
at best novelties, and have no continuity with the teaching of Christ.
Perhaps some heretics may
claim Apostolic antiquity: we reply: Let them publish the origins of
their churches and unroll the catalogue of their bishops till
now from the Apostles or from some bishop appointed
by the Apostles,
as the Smyrnaeans count from Polycarp and John,
and the Romans from Clement and Peter; let heretics invent
something to match this. Why, their errors were denounced by
the Apostles long
ago. Finally (36), he names some Apostolic churches, pointing above all
to Rome,
whose witness is nearest at hand, — happy Church,
in which the Apostles poured out their whole teaching with their
blood, where Peter suffered a death like his Master's,
where Paul was crowned with
an end like the Baptist's, where John was plunged into fiery oil
without hurt! The Roman Rule of Faith is summarized, no doubt from
the old Roman Creed, the same as our present Apostles'
Creed but for a few small additions in the latter; much the same
summary was given in chapter xiii, and is found also in "De
virginibus velandis" (chapter I). Tertullian evidently avoids giving the
exact words, which would be taught only to catechumens shortly
before baptism.
The whole luminous argument is founded on the
first chapters of St. Irenæus's third book, but its
forceful exposition is not more Tertullian's own than its exhaustive and compelling logic.
Never did he show himself less violent and less obscure.
The appeal to the Apostolic churches was unanswerable in
his day; the rest of his argument is still valid.
A series of short works
addressed to catechumens belong
also to Tertullian's Catholic days,
and fall between 200 and 206. "De spectaculis" explains and probably
exaggerates the impossibility for a Christian to
attend any heathen shows,
even races or theatrical performances, without either
wounding his faith by
participation in idolatry or
arousing his passions. "De idololatria" is by some placed at a
later date, but it is anyhow closely connected with the former work. It
explains that the making of idols is forbidden, and similarly astrology,
selling of incense,
etc. A schoolmaster cannot elude contamination. A Christian cannot
be a soldier. To the question, "How am I then to live?", Tertullian
replies that faith fears not
famine; for the Faith we must give up our life, how much more
our living? "De
baptismo" is an instruction on the necessity of baptism and
on its effects; it is directed against a female teacher
of error belonging
to the sect of Gaius (perhaps
the Anti-Montanist). We learn that baptism was
conferred regularly by the bishop,
but with his consent could be administered by priests, deacons,
or even laymen.
The proper times were Easter and Pentecost. Preparation was
made by fasting, vigils,
and prayers. Confirmation was
conferred immediately after by unction and laying
on of hands. "De paenitentia" will be mentioned later. "De
oratione" contains aan exposition of the Lord's
Prayer, totius evangelii breviarium. "De cultu feminarum" is
an instruction on modesty and plainness in dress; Tertullian enjoys detailing
the extravagances of female toilet
and ridiculing them. Besides these didactic works to catechumens,
Tertullian wrote at the same period two books, "Ad uxorem", in the
former of which he begs his wife not to marry again after his death,
as it is not proper for a Christian,
while in the second book he enjoins upon her at least
to marry a Christian if
she does marry, for pagans must
not be consorted with. A little book on patience is touching, for the writer
admits that it is an impudence in him to discourse on a virtue in
which he is so conspicuously lacking. A book against the Jews contains
some curious chronology,
used to prove the fulfilment of Daniel's prophecy of
the seventy weeks. The latter half of the book is nearly identical with part of
the third book against Marcion.
It would seem that Tertullian used over again what he had written in the
earliest form of that work, which dates from this time. "Adversus Hermogenem"
is against a certain Hermogenes, a painter (of idols?)
who taught that God created the
world out of pre-existing matter. Tertullian reduces his view ad
absurdum, and establishes the creation out of nothing both
from Scripture and reason.
The next period of
Tertullian's literary activity shows distinct evidence of Montanist opinions,
but he has not yet openly broken with the Church,
which had not as yet condemned the new prophecy. Montanus and
the prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla had been long dead when
Tertullian was converted to belief in
their inspiration. He held the words of Montanus to be really
those of the Paraclete,
and he characteristically exaggerated their import. We find him henceforth
lapsing into rigorism, and condemning absolutely second marriage and
forgiveness of certain sins,
and insisting on new fasts.
His teaching had always been excessive in its severity; now he positively
revels in harshness. Harnack and d'Alès look upon "De Virginibus
velandis" as the first work of this time, though it has been placed
later by Monceaux and others on account of its irritated tone. We learn
that Carthage was divided by a dispute
whether virgins should be veiled; Tertullian and the pro-Montanist
party stood for the affirmative. The book had been preceded by
a Greek writing on the same subject. Tertullian declares that
the Rule of Faith is unchangeable, but discipline is
progressive. He quotes a dream in favour of the veil.
The date may be about 206. Shortly afterwards Tertullian published
his largest extant work, five books against Marcion.
A first draft had been written much earlier; a second recension had been
published, when yet unfinished, without the writer's consent; the first
book of the final edition was finished in the fifteenth year of Severus,
207. The last book may be a few years later. This controversy is most important
for our knowledge of Marcion's doctrine.
The refutation of it out of his own New
Testament, which consisted of St.
Luke's Gospel and St.
Paul's Epistles,
enables us to reconstitute much of the heretic's Scripture text.
The result may be seen in Zahn's, "Geschichte des N. T. Kanons",
II, 455-524. A work against the Valentinians followed. It is mainly
based on the first book of St. Irenæus.
In 209 the little book
"De pallio" appeared. Tertullian had excited remark
by adopting the Greek
pallium, the recognized dress of philosophers,
and he defends his conduct in a witty pamphlet. A long book, "De
anima", gives Tertullian's psychology.
He well describes the unity of the soul;
he teaches that it is spiritual, but immateriality in the fullest sense he
admits for nothing that exists, — even God is corpus.
Two works are against the Docetism of
the Gnostics,
"De carne Christi" and "De
resurrectione carnis". Here he emphasizes the reality of Christ's Body
and His virgin-birth,
and teaches a corporal
resurrection. But he seems to deny the virginity of Mary,
the Mother of Christ, in
partu, though he affirms it ante partum. He addressed to
a convert who was a widower an exhortation to avoid
second marriage, which is equivalent to fornication. This work, "De
exhortatione castitatis", implies that the writer is not yet separated
from the Church.
The same excessive rigour appears in the "De corona", in which
Tertullian defends a soldier who had refused to wear a chaplet on his
head when he received the donative granted to the army on
the accession of Caracalla and Geta in
211. The man had been degraded and imprisoned.
Many Christians thought
his action extravagant, and refused to regard him as a martyr.
Tertullian not only declares that to wear the crown would have been idolatry,
but argues that no Christian can
be a soldier without compromising his faith.
Next in order is the "Scorpiace",
or antidote to the bite of the Scorpion, directed against the teaching of
the Valentinians that God cannot
approve of martyrdom,
since He does not want man's death; they even permitted the
external act of idolatry.
Tertullian shows that God desires
the courage of
the martyrs and
their victory over temptation;
he proves from Scripture the duty of
suffering death for the Faith and the great promises attached to this
heroism. To the year 212 belongs the open letter "Ad scapulam",
addressed to the proconsul of Africa who
was renewing the persecution,
which had ceased since 203. He is solemnly warned of the retribution
which overtakes persecutors.
The formal secession of
Tertullian from the Church of Carthage seems
to have taken place either in 211 or at the end of 212 at latest. The earlier
date is fixed by Harnack on account of the close connection between the
"De corona" of 211 with the "De fuga", which must, he
thinks, have immediately followed the "De corona". It is certain that
"De fuga in persecutione" was written after the secession. It
condemns flight in time of persecution,
for God's
providence has intended the suffering. This intolerable doctrine had
not been held by Tertullian in his Catholic days.
He now terms the Catholics "Psychici",
as opposed to the "spiritual" Montanists.
The cause of his schism is
not mentioned. It is unlikely that he left the Church by
his own act. Rather it would seem that when the Montanist prophecies were
finally disapproved at Rome,
the Church of Carthage excommunicated at
least the more violent among their adherents. After "De
fuga" come "De monogamia" (in which the wickedness of
second marriage is yet more severely censured) and "De
jejunio", a defence of the Montanist fasts.
A dogmatic work, "Adversus Prazean", is of great
importance. Praxeas had
prevented, according to Tertullian, the recognition of the Montanist prophecy by
the pope;
Tertullian attacks him as a Monarchian,
and develops his own doctrine of
the Holy
Trinity (see MONARCHIANS and PRAXEAS).
The last remaining work of the passionate schismatic is
apparently "De
pudicitia", if it is a protest, as is generally held, against a Decree of Pope
Callistus, in which the pardon of adulterers and fornicators, after
due penance done, was published at the intercession of the martyrs.
Monceaux, however, still supports the view which was once commoner than it now
is, that the Decree in
question was issued by a bishop of Carthage.
In any case Tertullian's attribution of it to a would-be episcopus episcoporum and pontifex
maximus merely attests its peremptory character. The identification
of this Decree with
the far wider relaxation of discipline with which Hippolytus reproaches Callistus is
uncertain.
The argument of
Tertullian must be considered in some detail, since his witness to
the ancient system of penance is of first-rate importance. As a Catholic,
he addressed "De paenitentia" to catechumens as
an exhortation to repentance previous to baptism.
Besides that sacrament he mentions, with an expression of
unwillingness, a "last hope", a second plank of salvation,
after which there is no other. This is the severe remedy of
exomologesis, confession, involving a
long penance in sackcloth and ashes for the
remission of post-baptismal sin.
In the "De
pudicitia" the Montanist now
declared that there is no forgiveness for the gravest sins,
precisely those for which exomologesis is necessary.
It is said by some modern critics, such as Funk and Turmel
among Catholics,
that Tertullian did not really change his view on this point the writing of the
two treatises. It is pointed out that in "De paenitentia" there is no
mention of the restoration of the penitent to communion; he is to
do penance, but with no hope of pardon in this life;
no sacrament is administered, and the satisfaction is lifelong. This
view is impossible. Tertullian declares in "De
pudicitia". That he has changed his mind and expects to be
taunted for his inconsistency. He implies that he used to hold such a
relaxation, as the one he is attacking, to be lawful. At any rate in the
"De paen." he parallels baptism with
exomologesis, and supposes that the latter has the same effect as the former,
obviously the forgiveness of sin in
this life. Communion is never mentioned, since catechumens are
addressed; but if exomologesis did not eventually restore all Christian privileges,
there could be no reason for fearing that the mention of it
should act as an encouragement to sin,
for a lifelong penance would hardly be a reassuring prospect. No
length is mentioned, evidently because the duration depended on
the nature of the sin and
the judgment of the bishop;
had death been the term, this would have been emphatically expressed. Finally.
And this is conclusive, it could not be insisted on that no
second penance was ever allowed, if all penance was
lifelong.
For the full
understanding of Tertullian's doctrine we
must know his
division of sin into
three classes. There are first the terrible crimes of idolatry, blasphemy, homicide, adultery,
fornication, false
witness, fraud (Adv. Marc.,
IV, ix; in "De Pud." he substitutes apostasy for false
witness and adds unnatural vice). As a Montanist he
calls these irremissible. Between these and mere venial sins there
are modica or media (De Pud.., I), less grave but yet
serious sins,
which he enumerates in "De Pud.", xix: "Sins of daily committal,
to which we are all subject; to whom indeed does it not occur to
be angry without cause and after the sun has set, or to
give a blow, or easily to curse, or to swear rashly, or break
a contract, or lie through shame or necessity? How much we
are tempted in business, in duties,
in trade, in food, in sight, in hearing! So that, if there were no forgiveness
for such things, none could be saved. Therefore there will be forgiveness
for these sins by
the prayer of Christ to
the Father" (De Pud., xix).
Another list (On
Pudicity 7) represents the sins which
may constitute a lost sheep, as distinguished from one that is dead:
"The faithful is lost if he attend the chariot races, or
gladiatorial combats, or the unclean theatre, or athletic shows, or
playing, or feasts on some secular solemnity, or if he has
exercised an art which in any way serves idolatry,
or has lapsed without consideration into some denial or blasphemy".
For these sins there
is forgiveness, though the sinner has strayed from the flock. How is
forgiveness obtained? We learn this only incidentally from the words:
"That kind of penitence which is subsequent to faith,
which can either obtain forgiveness from the bishop for
lesser sins,
or from God only
for those which are irremissible" (On
Pudicity 18). Thus Tertullian admits the power of the bishop for
all but "irremissible" sins.
The absolution which
he still acknowledges for frequent sins was
obviously not limited to a single occasion, but must have been frequently
repeated. It is not even referred to in "De paen", which deals only
with baptism and
public penance for the gravest sins.
Again, in "De
pudicitia", Tertullian repudiates his own earlier teaching that
the keys were left by Christ through Peter to
His Church (Scorpiace 10);
he now declares (On
Pudicity 21) that the gift was
to Peter personally, and cannot be claimed by the Church of
the Psychici. The spiritual have the right to
forgive, but the Paraclete said:
"The Church has the power to forgive sins but
I will not do so, lest they sin afresh."
The system of the Church of Carthage in
Tertullian's time was therefore manifestly this: Those who committed
grievous sins confessed them
to the bishop,
and he absolved them after due penance enjoined and
performed, unless the case was in his judgment so grave that
public penance was obligatory.
This public penance was only allowed once; it was for protracted
periods, even sometimes until the hour of death, but at the end of it
forgiveness and restoration were promised. The term was frequently shortened at
the prayer of martyrs.
Of the lost works of
Tertullian the most important was the defence of the Montanist manner
of prophesying,
"De ecstasi", in six books, with a seventh book against Apollonius.
To the peculiarities of Tertullian's views which have already been explained
must be added some further remarks. He did not care for philosophy:
the philosophers are
the "patriarchs of the heretics".
His notion that all things, pure spirits and even God,
must be bodies, is accounted for by his ignorance of philosophical terminology.
Yet of the human soul he
actually says that it was seen in a vision as tender, light, and of
the colour of air! All our souls were
contained in Adam, and are transmitted to us with the taint of original
sin upon them, — an ingenious if gross form of Traducianism.
His Trinitarian teaching is inconsistent, being an amalgamation of
the Roman doctrine with
that of St.
Justin Martyr. Tertullian has the true formula
for the Holy
Trinity, tres Personae, una Substantia. The Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost are numerically distinct, and each is God;
they are of one substance, one state, and one power. So far the doctrine is
accurately Nicene. But by the side of this appears
the Greek view which was one day to develop into Arianism:
that the unity is to be sought not in the Essence but in
the origin of the Persons. He says that from all eternity there
was reason (ratio) in God,
and in reason the Word (Sermo), not distinct from God,
but in vulva cordis. For the purpose
of creation the Word received a perfect birth
as Son. There was a time when there was no Son and
no sin,
when God was
neither Father nor Judge. In his Christology Tertullian
has had no Greek influence, and is purely Roman. Like most Latin Fathers he
speaks not of two Natures but of two Substances in
one Person, united without confusion, and distinct in their operations.
Thus he condemns by anticipation the Nestorian, Monophysite,
and Monothelite heresies.
But he seems to teach that Mary, the Mother of Christ,
had other children. Yet he makes her the second Eve, who by
her obedience effaced the disobedience of the first Eve.
Tertullian's doctrine of
the Holy
Eucharist has been much discussed, especially the words:
"Acceptum panem et distributum discipulis corpus suum illum fecit, hoc est
corpus meum dicendo, id est, figura corporis mei". A consideration of
the context shows only one interpretation to be possible. Tertullian
is proving that Our
Lord Himself explained bread in Jeremiah
11:19 (mittamus lignum in panem ejus) to refer to His Body, when He
said, "This is My Body", that is, that bread was
the symbol of His Body. Nothing can be elicited either for or against
the Real
Presence; for Tertullian does not explain whether the bread is
the symbol of the Body present or absent. The context suggests the
former meaning. Another passage is: Panem, quo ipsum corpus suum
repraesentat. This might mean "Bread which stands for His Body", or
"Presents, makes present". D'Ales has calculated that the sense of
presentation to the imagination occurs
seven times in Tertullian, and the similar moral sense (presentation
by picture, etc.) occurs twelve times, whereas the sense of physical
presentation occurs thirty-three times. In the treatise in question
against Marcion the
physical sense alone is found, and fourteen times. A more direct assertion of
the Real
Presence is Corpus ejus in pane censetur (On
Prayer 6). As to the grace given, he has some beautiful
expressions, such as: "Itaque petendo panem quotidianum,
perpetuitatem postulamus in Christo et individuitatem a corpore ejus"
(In petitioning for daily bread, we ask for perpetuity
in Christ, and indivisibility from His body. — Ibid.). A famous
passage on
the Sacraments of Baptism, Unction, Confirmation, Orders and Eucharist runs:
"Caro abluitur ut anima maculetur; caro ungitur ut anima consecretur;
caro signatur ut et anima muniatur; caro manus impositione adumbratur ut et
anima spiritu illuminetur; caro corpore et sanguine Christi vescitur
ut et anima de Deo saginetur" (The flesh is washed, in order that
the soul may
be cleansed; the flesh is anointed, that the soul may
be consecrated;
the flesh is signed [with the cross], that the soul,
too, may be fortified; the flesh is shadowed with the imposition
of hands, that the soul also
may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds on the body and blood
of Christ,
that the soul likewise
may have its fill of God —
"Deres. Carnis.", viii). He testifies to the practice of
daily communion, and the preserving of the Holy
Eucharist by private persons for
this purpose. What will a heathen husband
think of that which is taken by his Christian wife
before all other food? "If he knows that it
is Bread, will he not believe that it is simply what
it is called?" This implies not merely the Real
Presence, but transubstantiation.
The station
days were Wednesday and Friday; on what other days besides Holy
Mass was offered we do not know.
Some thought that Holy
Communion would break their fast on station
days; Tertullian explains: "When you have received and reserved the
Body of the Lord, you will have assisted at the Sacrifice and
have accomplished the duty of fasting as
well" (De oratione, xix). Tertullian's list of customs observed by Apostolic
tradition though not in Scripture (De cor., iii) is famous:
the baptismal renunciations
and feeding with milk and honey, fasting Communion, offerings for
the dead (Masses) on their anniversaries, no fasting or kneeling on
the Lord's
Day and between Easter and Pentecost,
anxiety as to the falling to the ground of any crumb or drop of the Holy
Eucharist, the Sign
of the Cross made continually during the day.
Tertullian's canon of
the Old
Testament included the deuterocanonical books, since he
quotes most of them. He also cites
the Book of Enoch as inspired, and thinks those who
rejected it were wrong. He seems also to recognize IV Esdras, and
the Sibyl, though he admits that there are many Sibylline forgeries.
In the New
Testament he knows the Four
Gospels, Acts, Epistles of St.
Paul, I Peter (Ad Ponticos),
I John, Jude, Apocalypse. He does not know James and
II Peter, but we cannot tell that he did not know II,
III John. He attributes Hebrews to St. Barnabas. He
rejects the "Pastor" of Hermas and says that
many councils of the Psychici had also rejected it.
Tertullian was learned, but careless in his historical statements. He
quotes Varro and a medical writer, Soranus of Ephesus,
and was evidently well read in pagan literature.
He cites Irenaeus, Justin, Miltiades,
and Proclus. He probably knew parts
of Clement
of Alexandria's writings. He is the first of Latin theological writers.
To some extent, how great we cannot tell, he must have invented a theological idiom and
have coined new expressions. He is the first witness to
the existence of a Latin Bible, though he seems frequently
to have translated from the Greek Bible as he wrote. Zahn has
denied that he possessed any Latin translation, but this opinion is
commonly rejected, and St. Perpetua certainly had one
at Carthage in 203.
Chapman,
John. "Tertullian." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol.
14. New York: Robert Appleton
Company, 1912. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14520c.htm>.
Transcription. This
article was transcribed for New Advent by Lucy Tobin.
Ecclesiastical
approbation. Nihil Obstat. July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Copyright © 2023 by Kevin Knight.
Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
SOURCE : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14520c.htm
Chapter 1. Time Changes
Nations’ Dresses and Fortunes
Men of Carthage, ever
princes of Africa, ennobled by ancient memories, blest with modern felicities,
I rejoice that times are so prosperous with you that you have leisure to spend
and pleasure to find in criticising dress. These are the “piping times of peace”
and plenty. Blessings rain from the empire and from the sky. Still, you too of
old time wore your garments – your tunics – of another shape; and indeed they
were in repute for the skill of the weft, and the harmony of the hue, and the
due proportion of the size, in that they were neither prodigally long across
the shins, nor immodestly scanty between the knees, nor niggardly to the arms,
nor tight to the hands, but, without being shadowed by even a girdle arranged
to divide the folds, they stood on men’s backs with quadrate symmetry. The
garment of the mantle extrinsically – itself too quadrangular – thrown back on
either shoulder, and meeting closely round the neck in the gripe of the buckle,
used to repose on the shoulders. Its counterpart is now the priestly dress,
sacred to Æsculapius, whom you now call your own. So, too, in your immediate
vicinity, the sister State used to clothe (her citizens); and wherever else in
Africa Tyre (has settled). But when the urn of worldly lots varied, and God
favoured the Romans, the sister State, indeed, of her own choice hastened to
effect a change; in order that when Scipio put in at her ports she might
already beforehand have greeted him in the way of dress, precocious in her
Romanizing. To you, however, after the benefit in which your injury resulted,
as exempting you from the infinity of age, not (deposing you) from your height
of eminence – after Gracchus and his foul omens, after Lepidus and his rough
jests, after Pompeius and his triple altars, and Cæsar and his long delays,
when Statilius Taurus reared your ramparts, and Sentius Saturninus pronounced
the solemn form of your inauguration, – while concord lends her aid, the gown
is offered. Well! what a circuit has it taken! From Pelasgians to Lydians; from
Lydians to Romans: in order that from the shoulders of the sublimer people it
should descend to embrace Carthaginians! Henceforth, finding your tunic too
long, you suspend it on a dividing cincture; and the redundancy of your now
smooth toga you support by gathering it together fold upon fold; and, with
whatever other garment social condition or dignity or season clothes you, the
mantle, at any rate, which used to be worn by all ranks and conditions among
you, you not only are unmindful of, but even deride. For my own part, I wonder
not (thereat), in the face of a more ancient evidence (of your forgetfulness).
For the ram withal- not that which Laberius (calls)
“Back-twisted-horned,
wool-skinned, stones-dragging,”
but a beam-like engine it
is, which does military service in battering walls – never before poised by
any, the redoubted Carthage,
“Keenest in pursuits of
war,”
is said to have been the
first of all to have equipped for the oscillatory work of pendulous impetus;
modelling the power of her engine after the choleric fury of the head-avenging
beast. When, however, their country’s fortunes are at the last gasp, and the
ram, now turned Roman, is doing his deeds of daring against the ramparts which
erst were his own, immediately the Carthaginians stood dumbfounded as at a
“novel” and “strange” ingenuity: “so much does Time’s long age avail to
change!” Thus, in short, it is that the mantle, too, is not recognised.
Chapter 2. The Law of
Change, or Mutation, Universal
Draw we now our material
from some other source, lest Punichood either blush or else grieve in the midst
of Romans. To change her habit is, at all events, the stated function of entire
nature. The very world itself (this which we inhabit) meantime discharges it.
See to it Anaximander, if he thinks there are more (worlds): see to it, whoever
else (thinks there exists another) anywhere at the region of the Meropes, as
Silenus prates in the ears of Midas, apt (as those ears are ), it must be
admitted, for even huger fables. Nay, even if Plato thinks there exists one of
which this of ours is the image, that likewise must necessarily have similarly
to undergo mutation; inasmuch as, if it is a “world,” it will consist of
diverse substances and offices, answerable to the form of that which is here
the “world:” for “world” it will not be if it be not just as the “world” is.
Things which, in diversity, tend to unity, are diverse by demutation. In short,
it is their vicissitudes which federate the discord of their diversity. Thus it
will be by mutation that every “world” will exist whose corporate structure is
the result of diversities, and whose attemperation is the result of
vicissitudes. At all events, this hostelry of ours is versiform, a fact which
is patent to eyes that are closed, or utterly Homeric. Day and night revolve in
turn. The sun varies by annual stations, the moon by monthly phases. The stars
– distinct in their confusion – sometimes drop, sometimes resuscitate,
somewhat. The circuit of the heaven is now resplendent with serenity, now
dismal with cloud; or else rain-showers come rushing down, and whatever
missiles (mingle) with them: thereafter (follows) a slight sprinkling, and then
again brilliance. So, too, the sea has an ill repute for honesty; while at one
time, the breezes equably swaying it, tranquillity gives it the semblance of
probity, calm gives it the semblance of even temper; and then all of a sudden
it heaves restlessly with mountain-waves. Thus, too, if you survey the earth,
loving to clothe herself seasonably, you would nearly be ready to deny her
identity, when, remembering her green, you behold her yellow, and will before
long see her hoary too. Of the rest of her adornment also, what is there which
is not subject to interchanging mutation – the higher ridges of her mountains
by decursion, the veins of her fountains by disappearance, and the pathways of
her streams by alluvial formation? There was a time when her whole orb, withal,
underwent mutation, overrun by all waters. To this day marine conchs and
tritons’ horns sojourn as foreigners on the mountains, eager to prove to Plato
that even the heights have undulated. But withal, by ebbing out, her orb again
underwent a formal mutation; another, but the same. Even now her shape
undergoes local mutations, when (some particular) spot is damaged; when among
her islands Delos is now no more, Samos a heap of sand, and the Sibyl (is thus
proved) no liar; when in the Atlantic (the isle) that was equal in size to
Libya or Asia is sought in vain; when formerly a side of Italy, severed to the
centre by the shivering shock of the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian seas, leaves
Sicily as its relics; when that total swoop of discussion, whirling backwards
the contentious encounters of the mains, invested the sea with a novel vice,
the vice not of spewing out wrecks, but of devouring them! The continent as
well suffers from heavenly or else from inherent forces. Glance at Palestine.
Where Jordan’s river is the arbiter of boundaries, (behold) a vast waste, and a
bereaved region, and bootless land! And once (there were there) cities, and
flourishing peoples, and the soil yielded its fruits. Afterwards, since God is
a Judge, impiety earned showers of fire: Sodom’s day is over, and Gomorrha is
no more; and all is ashes; and the neighbour sea no less than the soil experiences
a living death! Such a cloud overcast Etruria, burning down her ancient
Volsinii, to teach Campania (all the more by the eruption of her Pompeii) to
look expectantly upon her own mountains. But far be (the repetition of such
catastrophes)! Would that Asia, withal, were by this time without cause for
anxiety about the soil’s voracity! Would, too, that Africa had once for all
quailed before the devouring chasm, expiated by the treacherous absorption of
one single camp! Many other such detriments besides have made innovations upon
the fashion of our orb, and moved (particular) spots (in it). Very great also
has been the licence of wars. But it is no less irksome to recount sad details
than (to recount) the vicissitudes of kingdoms, (and to show) how frequent have
been their mutations, from Ninus the progeny of Belus, onwards; if indeed Ninus
was the first to have a kingdom, as the ancient profane authorities assert.
Beyond his time the pen is not wont (to travel), in general, among you
(heathens). From the Assyrians, it may be, the histories of “recorded time”
begin to open. We, however, who are habitual readers of divine histories, are
masters of the subject from the nativity of the universe itself. But I prefer,
at the present time, joyous details, inasmuch as things joyous withal are
subject to mutation. In short, whatever the sea has washed away, the heaven
burned down, the earth undermined, the sword shorn down, reappears at some
other time by the turn of compensation. For in primitive days not only was the
earth, for the greater part of her circuit, empty and uninhabited; but if any
particular race had seized upon any part, it existed for itself alone. And so,
understanding at last that all things worshipped themselves, (the earth)
consulted to weed and scrape her copiousness (of inhabitants), in one place
densely packed, in another abandoning their posts; in order that thence (as it
were from grafts and settings) peoples from peoples, cities from cities, might
be planted throughout every region of her orb. Transmigrations were made by the
swarms of redundant races. The exuberance of the Scythians fertilizes the
Persians; the Phœnicians gush out into Africa; the Phrygians give birth to the
Romans; the seed of the Chaldeans is led out into Egypt; subsequently, when
transferred thence, it becomes the Jewish race. So, too, the posterity of
Hercules, in like wise, proceed to occupy the Peloponnesus for the benefit of
Temenus. So, again, the Ionian comrades of Neleus furnish Asia with new cities:
so, again, the Corinthians with Archias, fortify Syracuse. But antiquity is by
this time a vain thing (to refer to), when our own careers are before our eyes.
How large a portion of our orb has the present age reformed! How many cities
has the triple power of our existing empire either produced, or else augmented,
or else restored! While God favours so many Augusti unitedly, how many
populations have been transferred to other localities! How many peoples
reduced! How many orders restored to their ancient splendour! How many
barbarians baffled! In truth, our orb is the admirably cultivated estate of
this empire; every aconite of hostility eradicated; and the cactus and bramble
of clandestinely crafty familiarity wholly uptorn; and (the orb itself)
delightsome beyond the orchard of Alcinoüs and the rosary of Midas. Praising,
therefore, our orb in its mutations, why do you point the finger of scorn at a
man?
Chapter 3. Beasts
Similarly Subject to the Law of Mutation
Beasts, too, instead of a
garment, change their form. And yet the peacock withal has plumage for a
garment, and a garment indeed of the choicest; nay, in the bloom of his neck
richer than any purple, and in the effulgence of his back more gilded than any
edging , and in the sweep of his tail more flowing than any train;
many-coloured, diverse-coloured, and versi-coloured; never itself, ever
another, albeit ever itself when other; in a word, mutable as oft as moveable.
The serpent, too, deserves to be mentioned, albeit not in the same breath as
the peacock; for he too wholly changes what has been allotted him- his hide and
his age: if it is true, (as it is,) that when he has felt the creeping of old
age throughout him, he squeezes himself into confinement; crawls into a cave
and out of his skin simultaneously; and, clean shorn on the spot, immediately
on crossing the threshold leaves his slough behind him then and there, and
uncoils himself in a new youth: with his scales his years, too, are repudiated.
The hyena , if you observe, is of an annual sex, alternately masculine and
feminine. I say nothing of the stag, because himself withal, the witness of his
own age, feeding on the serpent, languishes- from the effect of the poison-
into youth. There is, withal,
A tardigrade field-haunting quadruped,
Humble and rough.
The tortoise of Pacuvius,
you think? No. There is another beastling which the versicle fits; in size, one
of the moderate exceedingly, but a grand name. If, without previously knowing
him, you hear tell of a chameleon, you will at once apprehend something yet
more huge united with a lion. But when you stumble upon him, generally in a
vineyard, his whole bulk sheltered beneath a vine leaf, you will immediately
laugh at the egregious audacity of the name, in as much as there is no moisture
even in his body, though in far more minute creatures the body is liquefied.
The chameleon is a living pellicle. His headkin begins straight from his spine,
for neck he has none: and thus reflection is hard for him; but, in
circumspection, his eyes are outdarting, nay, they are revolving points of
light. Dull and weary, he scarce raises from the ground, but drags, his
footstep amazedly, and moves forward-he rather demonstrates, than takes, a
step: ever fasting, to boot, yet never fainting; agape he feeds; heaving,
bellows like, he ruminates; his food wind. Yet withal the chameleon is able to
effect a total self-mutation, and that is all. For, whereas his colour is
properly one, yet, whenever anything has approached him, then he blushes. To
the chameleon alone has been granted – as our common saying has it – to sport
with his own hide.
Much had to be said in
order that, after due preparation, we might arrive at man. From whatever
beginning you admit him as springing, naked at all events and ungarmented he
came from his fashioner’s hand: afterwards, at length, without waiting for
permission, he possesses himself, by a premature grasp, of wisdom. Then and
there hastening to forecover what, in his newly made body, it was not yet due
to modesty (to forecover), he surrounds himself meantime with fig-leaves:
subsequently, on being driven from the confines of his birthplace because he
had sinned, he went, skin-clad, to the world as to a mine.
But these are secrets,
nor does their knowledge appertain to all. Come, let us hear from your own
store- (a store) which the Egyptians narrate, and Alexander digests, and his
mother reads- touching the time of Osiris, when Ammon, rich in sheep, comes to
him out of Libya. In short, they tell us that Mercury, when among them,
delighted with the softness of a ram which he had chanced to stroke, flayed a
little ewe; and, while he persistently tries and (as the pliancy of the
material invited him) thins out the thread by assiduous traction, wove it into
the shape of the pristine net which he had joined with strips of linen. But you
have preferred to assign all the management of wool-work and structure of the
loom to Minerva; whereas a more diligent workshop was presided over by Arachne.
Thenceforth material (was abundant). Nor do I speak of the sheep of Miletus,
and Selge, and Altinum, or of those for which Tarentum or Bætica is famous,
with nature for their dyer: but (I speak of the fact) that shrubs afford you
clothing, and the grassy parts of flax, losing their greenness, turn white by
washing. Nor was it enough to plant and sow your tunic, unless it had likewise
fallen to your lot to fish for raiment. For the sea withal yields fleeces,
inasmuch as the more brilliant shells of a mossy wooliness furnish a hairy
stuff. Further: it is no secret that the silkworm- a species of wormling it is-
presently reproduces safe and sound (the fleecy threads) which, by drawing them
through the air, she distends more skilfully than the dial-like webs of
spiders, and then devours. In like manner, if you kill it, the threads which
you coil are immediately instinct with vivid colour.
The ingenuities,
therefore, of the tailoring art, superadded to, and following up, so abundant a
store of materials- first with a view to coveting humanity, where Necessity led
the way; and subsequently with a view to adorning withal, ay, and inflating it,
where Ambition followed in the wake- have promulgated the various forms of
garments. Of which forms, part are worn by particular nations, without being
common to the rest; part, on the other hand, universally, as being useful to
all: as, for instance, thisMantle, albeit it is more Greek (than Latin), has
yet by this time found, in speech, a home in Latium. With the word the garment
entered. And accordingly the very man who used to sentence Greeks to extrusion
from the city, but learned (when he was now advanced in years) their alphabet
and speech- the self-same Cato, by baring his shoulder at the time of his
prætorship, showed no less favour to the Greeks by his mantle-like garb.
Chapter 4. Change Not
Always Improvement
Why, now, if the Roman
fashion is (social) salvation to every one, are you nevertheless Greek to a
degree, even in points not honourable? Or else, if it is not so, whence in the
world is it that provinces which have had a better training, provinces which
nature adapted rather for surmounting by hard struggling the difficulties of
the soil, derive the pursuits of the wrestling-ground- pursuits which fall into
a sad old age and labour in vain- and the unction with mud, and the rolling in
sand, and the dry dietary? Whence comes it that some of our Numidians, with
their long locks made longer by horsetail plumes, learn to bid the barber shave
their skin close, and to exempt their crown alone from the knife? Whence comes
it that men shaggy and hirsute learn to teach the resin to feed on their arms
with such rapacity, the tweezers to weed their chin so thievishly? A prodigy it
is, that all this should be done without the Mantle! To the Mantle appertains
this whole Asiatic practice! What have you, Libya, and you, Europe, to do with
athletic refinements, which you know not how to dress? For, in truth, what kind
of thing is it to practise Greekish depilation more than Greekish attire?
The transfer of dress
approximates to culpability just in so far as it is not custom, but nature,
which suffers the change. There is a wide enough difference between the honour
due to time, and religion. Let Custom show fidelity to Time, Nature to God. To
Nature, accordingly, the Larissæan hero gave a shock by turning into a virgin;
he who had been reared on the marrows of wild beasts (whence, too, was derived
the composition of his name, because he had been a stranger with his lips to
the maternal breast ); he who had been reared by a rocky and wood-haunting and
monstrous trainer in a stony school. You would bear patiently, if it were in a
boy’s case, his mother’s solicitude; but he at all events was already
be-haired, he at all events had already secretly given proof of his manhood to
some one, when he consents to wear the flowing stole, to dress his hair, to
cultivate his skin, to consult the mirror, to bedizen his neck; effeminated
even as to his ear by boring, whereof his bust at Sigeum still retains the
trace. Plainly afterwards he turned soldier: for necessity restored him his
sex. The clarion had sounded of battle: nor were arms far to seek. “The steel’s
self,” says (Homer), “attracts the hero.” Else if, after that incentive as well
as before, he had persevered in his maidenhood, he might withal have been married!
Behold, accordingly, mutation! A monster, I call him-a double monster: from man
to woman; by and by from woman to man: whereas neither ought the truth to have
been belied, nor the deception confessed. Each fashion of changing was evil:
the one opposed to nature, the other contrary to safety.
Still more disgraceful
was the case when lust transfigured a man in his dress, than when some maternal
dread did so: and yet adoration is offered by you to me, whom you ought to
blush at – that club shaft and hide bearer, who exchanged for womanly attire
the whole proud heritage of his name! Such licence was granted to the secret
haunts of Lydia, that Hercules was prostituted in the person of Omphale, and
Omphale in that of Hercules. Where were Diomed and his gory mangers? Where
Busiris and his funereal altars? Where Geryon, triply one? The club preferred
still to reek with their brains when it was being pestered with ointments! The
now veteran (stain of the) Hydra’s and of the Centaurs’ blood upon the shafts
was gradually eradicated by the pumice-stone, familiar to the hair-pin! while
voluptuousness insulted over the fact that, after transfixing monsters, they
should perchance sew a coronet! No sober woman even, or heroine of any note,
would have adventured her shoulders beneath the hide of such a beast, unless
after long softening and smoothening down and deodorization (which in Omphale’s
house, I hope, was effected by balsam and fenugreek-salve: I suppose the mane,
too, submitted to the comb) for fear of getting her tender neck imbued with
lionly toughness. The yawning mouth stuffed with hair, the jaw-teeth
overshadowed amid the forelocks, the whole outraged visage, would have roared
had it been able. Nemea, at all events (if the spot has any presiding genius),
groaned: for then she looked around, and saw that she had lost her lion. What
sort of being the said Hercules was inOmphale’s silk, the description of
Omphale in Hercules’ hide has inferentially depicted.
But, again, he who had
formerly rivalled the Tirynthian – the pugilist Cleomachus – subsequently, at
Olympia, after losing by efflux his masculine sex by an incredible mutation-
bruised within his skin and without, worthy to be wreathed among the “Fullers”
even of Novius, and deservedly commemorated by the mimographer Lentulus in his
Catinensians- did, of course, not only cover with bracelets the traces left by
(the bands of) the cestus, but likewise supplanted the coarse ruggedness of his
athlete’s cloak with some superfinely wrought tissue.
Of Physco and Sardanapalus
I must be silent, whom, but for their eminence in lusts, no one would recognise
as kings. But I must be silent, for fear lest even they set up a muttering
concerning some of your Cæsars, equally lost to shame; for fear lest a mandate
have been given to canine constancy to point to a Cæsar impurer than Physco,
softer than Sardanapalus, and indeed a second Nero.
Nor less warmly does the
force of vainglory also work for the mutation of clothing, even while manhood
is preserved. Every affection is a heat: when, however, it is blown to (the
flame of) affectation, immediately, by the blaze of glory, it is an ardour.
From this fuel, therefore, you see a great king – inferior only to his glory-
seething. He had conquered the Median race, and was conquered by Median garb.
Doffing the triumphal mail, he degraded himself into the captive trousers! The
breast dissculptured with scaly bosses, by covering it with a transparent
texture he bared; punting still after the work of war, and (as it were)
softening, he extinguished it with the ventilating silk! Not sufficiently
swelling of spirit was the Macedonian, unless he had likewise found delight in
a highly inflated garb: only that philosophers withal (I believe) themselves
affect somewhat of that kind; for I hear that there has been (such a thing as)
philosophizing in purple. If a philosopher (appears) in purple, why not in
gilded slippers too? For a Tyrian to be shod in anything but gold, is by no
means consonant with Greek habits. Some one will say, “Well, but there was
another who wore silk indeed, and shod himself in brazen sandals.” Worthily,
indeed, in order that at the bottom of his Bacchantian raiment he might make
some tinkling sound, did he walk in cymbals! But if, at that moment, Diogenes
had been barking from his tub, he would not (have trodden on him ) with muddy
feet- as the Platonic couches testify- but would have carried Empedocles down
bodily to the secret recesses of the Cloacinæ; in order that he who had madly
thought himself a celestial being might, as a god, salute first his sisters,
and afterwards men. Such garments, therefore, as alienate from nature and
modesty, let it be allowed to be just to eye fixedly and point at with the
finger and expose to ridicule by a nod. Just so, if a man were to wear a dainty
robe trailing on the ground with Menander-like effeminacy, he would hear
applied to himself that which the comedian says, “What sort of a cloak is that
maniac wasting?” For, now that the contracted brow of censorial vigilance is
long since smoothed down, so far as reprehension is concerned, promiscuous
usage offers to our gaze freedmen in equestrian garb, branded slaves in that of
gentlemen, the notoriously infamous in that of the freeborn, clowns in that of
city-folk, buffoons in that of lawyers, rustics in regimentals; the
corpse-bearer, the pimp, the gladiator trainer, clothe themselves as you do.
Turn, again, to women. You have to behold what Cæcina Severus pressed upon the
grave attention of the senate- matrons stoleless in public. In fact, the penalty
inflicted by the decrees of the augur Lentulus upon any matron who had thus
cashiered herself was the same as for fornication; inasmuch as certain matrons
had sedulously promoted the disuse of garments which were the evidences and
guardians of dignity, as being impediments to the practising of prostitution.
But now, in their self-prostitution, in order that they may the more readily be
approached, they have abjured stole, and chemise, and bonnet, and cap; yes, and
even the very litters and sedans in which they used to be kept in privacy and
secrecy even in public. But while one extinguishes her proper adornments,
another blazes forth such as are not hers. Look at the street-walkers, the
shambles of popular lusts; also at the female self-abusers with their sex; and,
if it is better to withdraw your eyes from such shameful spectacles of publicly
slaughtered chastity, yet do but look with eyes askance, (and) you will at once
see (them to be) matrons! And, while the overseer of brothels airs her swelling
silk, and consoles her neck- more impure than her haunt- with necklaces, and
inserts in the armlets (which even matrons themselves would, of the guerdons
bestowed upon brave men, without hesitation have appropriated) hands privy to
all that is shameful, (while) she fits on her impure leg the pure white or pink
shoe; why do you not stare at such garbs? Or, again, at those which falsely
plead religion as the supporter of their novelty? While for the sake of an
all-white dress, and the distinction of a fillet, and the privilege of a
helmet, some are initiated into (the mysteries of) Ceres; while, on account of
an opposite hankering after sombre raiment, and a gloomy woollen covering upon
the head, others run mad in Bellona’s temple; while the attraction of surrounding
themselves with a tunic more broadly striped with purple, and casting over
their shoulders a cloak of Galatian scarlet, commends Saturn (to the affections
of others). When this Mantle itself, arranged with more rigorous care, and
sandals after the Greek model, serve to flatter Æsculapius, how much more
should you then accuse and assail it with your eyes, as being guilty of
superstition- albeit superstition simple and unaffected? Certainly, when first
it clothes this wisdom which renounces superstitions with all their vanities,
then most assuredly is the Mantle, above all the garments in which you array
your gods and goddesses, an august robe; and, above all the caps and tufts of
your Salii and Flamines, a sacerdotal attire. Lower your eyes, I advise you,
(and) reverence the garb, on the one ground, meantime, (without waiting for
others,) of being a renouncer of your error.
Chapter 5. Virtues of the
Mantle. It Pleads in Its Own Defence
“Still,” say you, “must
we thus change from gown to Mantle?” Why, what if from diadem and sceptre? Did
Anacharsis change otherwise, when to the royalty of Scythia he preferred
philosophy? Grant that there be no (miraculous) signs in proof of your
transformation for the better: there is somewhat which this your garb can do.
For, to begin with the simplicity of its uptaking: it needs no tedious
arrangement. Accordingly, there is no necessity for any artist formally to
dispose its wrinkled folds from the beginning a day beforehand, and then to
reduce them to a more finished elegance, and to assign to the guardianship of
the stretchers the whole figment of the massed boss; subsequently, at daybreak,
first gathering up by the aid of a girdle the tunic which it were better to
have woven of more moderate length (in the first instance), and, again
scrutinizing the boss, and rearranging any disarrangement, to make one part
prominent on the left, but (making now an end of the folds) to draw backwards
from the shoulders the circuit of it whence the hollow is formed, and, leaving
the right shoulder free, heap it still upon the left, with another similar set
of folds reserved for the back, and thus clothe the man with a burden! In
short, I will persistently ask your own conscience, What is your first
sensation in wearing your gown? Do you feel yourself clad, or laded? Wearing a
garment, or carrying it? If you shall answer negatively, I will follow you
home; I win see what you hasten to do immediately after crossing your
threshold. There is really no garment the doffing whereof congratulates a man
more than the gown’s does. Of shoes we say nothing- implements as they are of
torture proper to the gown, most uncleanly protection to the feet, yes, and
false too. For who would not find it expedient, in cold and heat, to stiffen
with feet bare rather than in a shoe with feet bound? A mighty munition for the
tread have the Venetian shoe-factories provided in the shape of effeminate
boots! Well, but, than the Mantle nothing is more expedite, even if it be
double, like that of Crates. Nowhere is there a compulsory waste of time in
dressing yourself (in it), seeing that its whole art consists in loosely
covering. That can be effected by a single circumjection, and one in no case
inelegant: thus it wholly covers every part of the man at once. The shoulder it
either exposes or encloses: in other respects it adheres to the shoulder; it
has no surrounding support; it has no surrounding tie; it has no anxiety as to
the fidelity with which its folds keep their place; easily it manages, easily
readjusts itself: even in the doffing it is consigned to no cross until the
morrow. If any shirt is worn beneath it, the torment of a girdle is
superfluous: if anything in the way of shoeing is worn, it is a most cleanly
work; or else the feet are rather bare-more manly, at all events, (if bare,)
than in shoes. These (pleas I advance) for the Mantle in the meantime, in so
far as you have defamed it by name. Now, however, it challenges you on the
score of its function withal. “I,” it says, owe no duty to the forum, the election-ground,
or the senate-house; I keep no obsequious vigil, preoccupy no platforms, hover
about no prætorian residences; I am not odorant of the canals, am not odorant
of the lattices, am no constant wearer out of benches, no wholesale router of
laws, no barking pleader, no judge, no soldier, no king: I have withdrawn from
the populace. My only business is with myself: except that other care I have
none, save not to care. The better life you would more enjoy in seclusion than
in publicity. But you will decry me as indolent. Forsooth, ‘we are to live for
our country, and empire, and estate.’ Such used, of old, to be the sentiment.
None is born for another, being destined to die for himself. At all events,
when we come to the Epicuri and Zenones, you give the epithet of ‘sages’ to the
whole teacherhood of Quietude, who have consecrated that Quietude with the name
of ‘supreme’ and ‘unique’ pleasure. Still, to some extent it will be allowed,
even to me, to confer benefit on the public. From any and every boundary-stone
or altar it is my wont to prescribe medicines to morals- medicines which will
be more felicitous in conferring good health upon public affairs, and states,
and empires, than your works are. Indeed, if I proceed to encounter you with
naked foils, gowns have done the commonwealth more hurt than cuirasses.
Moreover, I flatter no vices; I give quarter to no lethargy, no slothful
encrustation. I apply the cauterizing iron to the ambition which led M. Tullius
to buy a circular table of citron-wood for more than £4000, and Asinius Gallus
to pay twice as much for an ordinary table of the same Moorish wood (Hem! At
what fortunes did they value woody dapplings!), or, again, Sulla to frame
dishes of an hundred pounds’ weight. I fear lest that balance be small, when a
Drusillanus (and he withal a slave of Claudius!) constructs a tray of the
weight of 500 lbs.!- a tray indispensable, perchance, to the aforesaid tables,
for which, if a workshop was erected, there ought to have been erected a
dining-room too. Equally do I plunge the scalpel into the inhumanity which led
Vedius Pollio to expose slaves to fill the bellies of sea-eels. Delighted,
forsooth, with his novel savagery, he kept land-monsters, toothless, clawless,
hornless: it was his pleasure to turn perforce into wild beasts his fish, which
(of course) were to be immediately cooked, that in their entrails he himself
withal might taste some savour of the bodies of his own slaves. I will forelop
the gluttony which led Hortensius the orator to be the first to have the heart
to slay a peacock for the sake of food; which led Aufidius Lurco to be the
first to vitiate meat with stuffing, and by the aid of forcemeats to raise them
to an adulterous flavour; which led Asinius Celer to purchase the viand of a
single mullet at nearly £50; which led Æsopus the actor to preserve in his
pantry a dish of the value of nearly £800, made up of birds of the selfsame
costliness (as the mullet aforesaid), consisting of all the songsters and
talkers; which led his son, after such a titbit, to have the hardihood to
hunger after somewhat yet more sumptuous: for he swallowed down pearls- costly
even on the ground of their name- I suppose for fear he should have supped more
beggarly than his father. I am silent as to the Neros and Apicii and Rufi. I
will give a cathartic to the impurity of a Scaurus, and the gambling of a
Curius, and the intemperance of an Antony. And remember that these, out of the
many (whom I have named), were men of the toga- such as among the men of the
pallium you would not easily find. These purulencies of a state who will
eliminate and exsuppurate, save a bemantled speech?
Chapter 6. Further
Distinctions, and Crowning Glory, of the Pallium
“‘With speech,’ says (my
antagonist), ‘you have tried to persuade me-a most sage medicament.’ But,
albeit utterance be mute- impeded by infancy or else checked by bashfulness,
for life is content with an even tongueless philosophy- my very cut is eloquent.
A philosopher, in fact, is heard so long as he is seen. My very sight puts
vices to the blush. Who suffers not, when he sees his own rival? Who can bear
to gaze ocularly at him at whom mentally he cannot? Grand is the benefit
conferred by the Mantle, at the thought whereof moral improbity absolutely
blushes. Let philosophy now see to the question of her own profitableness; for
she is not the only associate whom I boast. Other scientific arts of public
utility I boast. From my store are clothed the first teacher of the forms of
letters, the first explainer of their sounds, the first trainer in the
rudiments of arithmetic, the grammarian, the rhetorician, the sophist, the
medical man, the poet, the musical time beater, the astrologer, and the bird
gazer. All that is liberal in studies is covered by my four angles. ‘True; but
all these rank lower than Roman knights’ Well; but your gladiatorial trainers,
and all their ignominious following, are conducted into the arena in togas.
This, no doubt, will be the indignity implied in ‘From gown to Mantle!'” Well,
so speaks the Mantle. But I confer on it likewise a fellowship with a divine
sect and discipline. Joy, Mantle, and exult! A better philosophy has now
deigned to honour you, ever since you have begun to be a Christian’s vesture!
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/tertullian-on-the-pallium/
Tertulliano Scrittore
ecclesiastico
Festa: Testimoni
Cartagine, 155 - 227
circa
Vi sono uomini che
annunciano il vangelo con la vita, e magari non sono in grado di verbalizzare
la profonda esperienza di comunione con il Signore che hanno vissuto. Altri,
invece, sono dotati di uno spirito profetico e sono capaci di letture profonde
e originali del mistero di Dio, ma la loro vita ci appare segnata dalla
contraddizione. È forse il caso di Tertulliano, teologo e autore spirituale tra
i più profondi e decisivi tra il II e il III secolo, il quale tuttavia si
chiuse sempre di più agli altri al punto di morire circondato da pochi adepti,
lontano dalla comunione con la grande chiesa e lontano perfino dall'intesa con
i profeti montanisti che pure aveva sostenuto con vigore. Membro di un'agiata
famiglia pagana di Cartagine, Tertulliano era nato verso il 160 e aveva
ricevuto una solida cultura classica. La sua passione per la speculazione si
accompagnò sempre con una precisione di linguaggio propria degli ambienti
giuridici romani. Questo gli consentì di essere il fondatore del linguaggio
teologico che prevarrà nella teologia latina. I suoi scritti sul battesimo,
sulla preghiera e sul martirio saranno ripresi abbondantemente da molti autori
successivi. Ma il suo rigore intellettuale, unito a una verve da grande
polemista e all'incontro con i movimenti profetici di forte ispirazione
ascetica degli ambienti montanisti, portò Tertulliano a una progressiva
intolleranza. La sua rottura con la grande chiesa si consumò nel 213, ma i dati
storici sull'esito della sua vicenda ci restano in gran parte ignoti. Tertulliano
ha lasciato un corpus di pregevoli insegnamenti. Forse non comprese pienamente
la condiscendenza di Dio verso le debolezze degli uomini, ma certamente il
Signore avrà purificato questa sua lacuna, mostrandogli infine la sua infinita
e incompresa misericordia.
Mentre ad Alessandria
d’Egitto muoveva i primi passi la Scuola di Demetrio, di Clemente di
Alessandria e di Origene, nel nord Africa occidentale, Tertulliano si afferma
come il più importante autore latino. Con lui inizia una produzione di testi
scritti non più in greco e destinati, anche per questo, ad una rapidissima
diffusione nell’occidente cristiano.
Tertulliano nacque a Cartagine nel 155 da genitori pagani che gli garantirono
una importante formazione giuridica, al punto da divenire un famoso avvocato a
Roma: anche il Corpus Iuris Civilis lo cita più volte. Intorno al 193, dopo la
conversione al cristianesimo, si stabilì a Cartagine.
La conversione è forse legata alla sua esperienza di fronte alla comportamento
dei martiri cristiani: il carattere fermo e determinato trasmessogli dal padre
centurione non poteva che portarlo a guardare con particolare attenzione, forse
ammirazione, verso quella scelta “assurda” di sacrificare la vita per un oscuro
uomo della Galilea morto molti anni prima. Pur sostenendo che ognuno può
scegliersi la propria religione (Ad Scapulam 2), in realtà egli desiderava per
sé e per tutti i cristiani la morte per fede. Da qui la condanna di ogni
sotterfugio (come la fuga di fronte alle persecuzioni) per evitare la morte pur
senza cercarla ad ogni costo.
Dagli scritti si ricava pochissimo della sua vita: non scrive quasi nulla di sé
stesso. Dice di essere un debole, un impaziente. Da avvocato cerca la vittoria
e la sconfitta dell'avversario. Il suo stile mutua le tecniche della retorica e
degli oratori della Grecia: frasi brevi, domanda-risposta, uso delle antitesi,
giochi di parole, concisione. Coniò vocaboli nuovi: scrivendo in latino dovette
introdurre neologismi che segneranno, poi, tutta la teologia cristiana. Eppure,
ad esempio, tace sul ruolo che esercitava nella Chiesa: basti pensare che per
Girolamo, De vir. ill. 53 fu presbitero, mentre in realtà l’Africano non si
qualificò mai come tale.
Certa invece è la sua intensa attività letteraria. Tertulliano conosce bene la
filosofia, il diritto, la letteratura greca e latina; si serve benissimo della
retorica ed è famoso per la sua satira. Non fu incline ai compromessi: i suoi
scritti sono praticamente tutte opere polemiche. Ma non solo. Ad esempio fu
autore di trattati apologetici come Ad nationes e Apologeticum che
riconoscono nell’ignoranza la vera causa delle persecuzioni: l’appello
alla giustizia romana perché sia concessa la libertà religiosa è la cifra delle
opere di questo grande scrittore del II-III secolo.
Ma sono i trattati polemici che rivelano lo spessore e l’acume dell’uomo. In
essi trasuda lo spirito che più caratterizza Tertulliano. Nel De praescriptione
haereticorum egli mostra la sua profonda conoscenza del diritto romano: la
"praescriptio" è una obiezione giuridica che permette al difensore di
fermare il corso del processo nella forma in cui l'ha impostato il querelante.
Oggetto del contendere: la Scrittura. Per Tertulliano gli avversari non la
possono citare a loro vantaggio perché patrimonio esclusivo dei cristiani.
Scrisse molti libri contro gli gnostici (Adversus Marcionem; Adversus
Hermogenem, un pittore gnostico di Cartagine Adversus Valentinianos, un
commento satirico alla dottrina gnostica di Valentino).
Tertulliano lasciò traccia in ogni ambito della riflessione e della fede
cristiana. In De baptismo, si occupò del battesimo e della cresima: attacca un
certo Quintilla della setta dei cainiti, sostenitore di una dottrina
razionalistica. Ancora una volta, ma così sarà sempre nei suoi testi, la vis
polemica accompagna lo sforzo dottrinale.
Non diversamente le opere che trattano a titolo diverso della preghiera e della
morale. De oratione commenta il Padre nostro; De cultu feminarum si occupa
dell’abbigliamento femminile ed ancora il De patientia, e il De paenitentia.
Prima della morte, che dovrebbe risalire dopo il 220, verso l’anno 227
Tertulliano opera la scelta montanista, si allontana dalla Chiesa divenendo
capo di una setta, i tertullianisti, attivi ancora all'epoca di Agostino. Le
ragioni di questa svolta forse risalgono al disagio che provava mentre la
Chiesa era attraversata da difficoltà esterne (come le persecuzioni) ed interne
(come le eresie). L’Africano sembra prediligere una Chiesa pura e senza
macchia, capace di una testimonianza resa senza compromessi o tentennamenti.
Non c’è spazio per i deboli, i peccatori né per chi opera per un loro ritorno,
dopo congrua penitenza, nella Chiesa.
Il cambio di prospettiva si registra negli scritti degli ultimi anni. Tra
questi il De carne Christi, 210-212 che tratta della resurrezione del corpo; il
De resurrectione carnis, 212-213, un’opera anti Marcione e quanti negano
la resurrezione; oppure Adversus Praxean, 213 dove Tertulliano accusa
Prassea di eresia sulla trinità e di opporsi alla nuova profezia (alla quale
lui aveva aderito) e di essere responsabile della condanna di Montano e dei
suoi discepoli da parte del vescovo di Roma.
Ormai si registra uno scontro aperto contro la Chiesa di Roma: De ieiunio,
213-214, è un’opera che attacca i cristiani legati a Roma. L’Africano invita a
combattere la "voluttà" cristiana e a difendere pratiche di digiuno
più intenso. Sono nei testi che riguardano la morale e l’ecclesiologia le opere
dove Tertulliano marca sempre pù l’allontanamento dalla Grande Chiesa.
Una figura, quindi, molto complessa quella di Tertulliano. Se il rifiuto della
comunione con la Chiesa nell’ultima parte della sua vita costituisce una grave
decisione, rimane l’Africano uno scrittore ecclesiastico tra i più prolifici e
brillanti del III secolo. La sua cristologia, ad esempio, sarà ripresa dal
concilio di Nicea e dal concilio di Calcedonia (Adv. Prax. 27). Sulla Trinità
Tertulliano scrisse il più grande testo teologico con formule precise e
"attuali": coniò il termine latino trinitas applicandolo alle Persone
divine. Ancora: la sua dottrina sacramentaria si fonda sulla presenza
reale (De res.8) e sulla pratica diffusa della riserva eucaristica (cfr. De
orat.19; Ad ux. 2, 5 e comunione privata a casa).
Pur rifiutando le scelte compiute nell’ultima parte della sua vita, sono queste
ultime ragioni quelle che giustificano la notevole presenza di Tertulliano
ancora oggi nell’ambito della Chiesa. Ne sono prova le citazioni presenti nel
Concilio Vaticano II e nel Catechismo della Chiesa Cattolica.
Del primo ricordiamo la Costituzione dogmatica su “La Chiesa” Lumen gentium che riporta il pensiero di Tertulliano in più punti (Lg 6; 20, 22, 42); Gaudium et spes (Gs 22) e Ad gentes (Ag 5).
Del secondo segnaliamo Ad uxorem 1, 1 (991); 2, 9 (1642); Adv. Marc. 1, 3
(228); 2, 4 (1951); Apologeticum 9 (2271); 50 (852); De
oratione 1 (2761, 2774); 3 (2279, 2814); 5 (2817); 10
(2761); De paenit. 4, 2 (1446); De Resurr. Carnis 1, 1 (991); 8, 2
(1015).
Non solo: l’importanza di questo grande scrittore ecclesiastico si ricava dal
profilo emerso da Benedetto XVI, Udienza mercoledì 30 maggio 2007 e dalla
presenza nella Liturgia delle Ore, Ufficio delle Letture, seconda lettura in
occasione della Festa SS. Filippo e Giacomo apostoli quando leggiamo De oratione,
Praesc. haer.
Autore: Massimo Salani
SOURCE : https://www.santiebeati.it/Detailed/95560.html
TERTULLIANO, Quinto
Settimio Florenzio
di Mario Niccoli
Enciclopedia Italiana
(1937)
Apologista e scrittore
cristiano. Le scarne e malcerte notizie che la tradizione cristiana ci ha
trasmesso sulla vita e sulla carriera di T., trovano un riscontro nell'avarizia
di dati biografici che si possono trarre dalla stessa eredità letteraria, pur tanto
copiosa, dello scrittore. Sì che spesso momenti capitali nella vita di lui ci
sfuggono completamente, e solo in via ipotetica è possibile supplire a questa
lacuna.
T. nacque a Cartagine,
centro intellettuale e commerciale dell'Africa, verosimilmente fra il 155 e il
160. Figlio di un centurione comandante le truppe romane al servizio del
proconsole d'Africa, ricevette una completa educazione nelle scuole di
Cartagine, allora fra le più reputate di tutto l'impero. Ottimo conoscitore
della lingua greca, sì da poter scrivere con sicurezza anche in questa lingua;
buon conoscitore, e spesso di prima mano, del patrimonio letterario della
classicità; iniziato allo studio sia della filosofia sia della medicina;
animato da un'insaziabile desiderio di sapere, si lasciò attrarre soprattutto
dall'arte retorica, congeniale all'irruenza del suo temperamento battagliero,
alla sua passione per la polemica. Ma lo studio delle leggi, tanto diffuso in
quell'Africa definita da Giovenale come "nutrice di avvocati", sembra
aver avuto un'influenza decisiva sulla sua formazione intellettuale che ne uscì
foggiata in maniera inconfondibile.
"Perfetto
conoscitore delle leggi dei Romani" lo definisce Eusebio, e certo questo
attestato ha molto contribuito, insieme con l'evidente conoscenza del diritto
romano riscontrabile in tutta la sua opera teologica e polemica, alla genesi
dell'ipotesi (formulata già dal Cuiacio) che vuol identificare il nostro T. col
giureconsulto romano di egual nome, vissuto anch'esso all'epoca di Settimio Severo,
e l'opera del quale è conservata frammentariamente nel Digesto. Ma l'ipotesi,
per quanto suggestiva e raccomandata a buoni argomenti, sembra urtare col fatto
che uno studio attento dei frammenti di T. giureconsulto rivela (come ha
efficacemente provato l'indagine di P. Vitton) che l'attività scientifica del
giureconsulto si deve esser protratta almeno fino al 195: in epoca posteriore,
cioè, alla conversione di T. al cristianesimo. Ora, appare estremamente
improbabile, a chi conosca la sdegnosa fermezza di T. apologista e moralista
cristiano nel ripudiare tutte le istituzioni della società pagana, che egli,
convertitosi al cristianesimo, abbia insistito in un'attività così poco consona
alla sua recente esperienza. Comunque può supporsi che T., ancora pagano,
giovane esuberante e desideroso di affermazione, si sia lasciato attrarre dalla
carriera forense. Quasi certamente egli fu a Roma se, come appare probabile, la
minuta conoscenza dell'Urbe e dei suoi monumenti che si rivela chiaramente nei
suoi scritti, sono il riflesso di una conoscenza diretta, e se non si voglia
interpretare come fantasia retorica la sua affermazione (De cultu feminarum, I,
7) di aver visto a Roma (vidimus Romae) un corteggio di Medi e di Parti.
Ma quando e come sia
stato compiuto questo viaggio, se esso si sia ripetuto di frequente, se debba
comunque porsi in relazione con la sua attività professionale, non è dato
precisare. Qualunque sia stata la sua professione - molti hanno pensato che
anche T., come Cipriano, Arnobio, Lattanzio e S. Agostino, fosse un maestro di
retorica - è certo che T. da giovane sentì il fascino dell'agone letterario.
"Adhuc adulescens", T. scrisse (lusit, secondo l'espressione di S.
Girolamo che è il nostro testimonio giacché lo scritto è perduto) un
opuscolo De angustiis nuptiarum ad amicum philosophum. Gli scritti di T.
cristiano sono pieni di accorate confessioni sulla dissipata giovinezza. Ci
sono ignoti completamente i motivi per i quali sia stato indotto ad abbracciare
la fede cristiana: certo lo spettacolo dell'eroismo dei martiri dovette colpire
il suo spirito che sembra avere tratto dall'acerbo gusto di marciare contro
corrente il suo alimento preferito. Certo la sua conversione (verso il 190-195)
fu senza compromessi, totalitaria: egli s'impadronì compiutamente della Bibbia,
lesse gli apologisti greci, la letteratura subapostolica, le opere di Ireneo,
forse ebbe notizia anche degli scritti di Clemente Alessandrino; pur rimanendo
(come sembra probabile nonostante la contraria affermazione di S. Girolamo) semplice
laico, portò nella sua nuova vita la stessa ardente passione che aveva profuso
nello studio e nei piaceri. Rinnegò tutto, votandosi con anima di apostolo, con
temperamento di combattente, con intransigente rigorismo, alla causa cristiana.
A un certo punto della sua vita (circa il 207) aderì al montanismo: ma, più che
come una seconda conversione, l'adesione di T. alla profezia dei Frigi fu
effetto della sua ostinata volontà di rimaner fermo a quei valori che egli
considerava e aveva sempre considerato come essenziali del cristianesimo e che
vedeva a poco a poco naufragare nella sistemazione ecclesiastica dell'ideale
cristiano.
T. morì vecchio:
"fertur vixisse usque ad decrepitam aetatem" asserisce S. Girolamo.
Da S. Agostino apprendiamo che aveva finito col separarsi anche dai montanisti,
per diventare "tertullianista". E la notizia, se può essere
storicamente discussa, riflette alla perfezione il tragico destino di questo
spirito irrequieto che avendo generosamente dato per la causa cristiana, sempre
insoddisfatto di sé e degli altri, assillato dal miraggio di una perfezione
irraggiungibile, doveva finire in armonia solo con sé stesso.
Per valutare esattamente
l'importanza eccezionale che l'opera di T. ha avuto nella storia del
cristianesimo primitivo, basterà riflettere che con l'attività letteraria di T.
(197-222 circa), quasi contemporanea a quella di Clemente Alessandrino e
preceduta solo da quella degli scrittori subapostolici, degli apologisti e di
Ireneo, la cristianità dell'Africa romana, d'importanza così decisiva nella
storia religiosa dell'Occidente, entra per la prima volta nella luce chiara
della storia, dopo gl'incerti albori dei quali è traccia nell'episodio dei
martiri scillitani.
T. è stato, prima di
tutto, il ricreatore dell'apologetica cristiana. Gli apologisti greci (v. apologetica),
anche quando avevano mirato direttamente a mostrare alle autorità pubbliche
l'ingiustizia della persecuzione anticristiana, avevano fatto questo
soprattutto difendendo l'ideale cristiano dalle calunnie di cui era oggetto,
dipingendo la loro fede quasi come ricapitolazione della spiritualità
precristiana (T., nel trarre dalla testimonianza dell'anima naturaliter
christiana argomento, di sapore così schiettamente immanentistico, in
favore della verità cristiana, biasimerà apertamente questo atteggiamento degli
apologisti greci: De testimonio animae, del 197) e chiedendo per essa il
diritto all'esistenza appellandosi alla ragione, alla filosofia, all'umanità.
Ma la loro esposizione non segue quasi mai un piano logico e difetta
soprattutto di rigore dialettico nella questione di fondo, cioè nella questione
giuridica. T. vivifica l'argomentazione tradizionale dell'apologetica greca
innestandola in un quadro di eccezionale vigore logico e polemico, prendendo
direttamente a partito la stessa legislazione romana. Nell'Apologetico (del
197), senza dubbio uno dei capolavori della letteratura mondiale, T. mostra
tutta l'illogicità e l'iniquità della procedura contro i cristiani: i quali
perseguitati come rei di delitti atroci, sono oggetto di un trattamento
giudiziario completamente diverso da quello cui sono sottoposti i non cristiani
rei degli stessi delitti. I giudici si ostinano a voler ignorare la natura del
delitto che essì perseguitano: "vacante autem meriti notitia, unde odii
iustitia defenditur?". Ai cristiani non si richiede che la "confessio
nominis", non "l'examinatio criminis". Ma la verità, pur non
chiedendo grazia per sé, giacché non si meraviglia della sua condizione, una
sola cosa chiede: "ne ignorata damnetur". T. parlerà per tutti.
Innanzi tutto quando i giudici, a norme di diritto, sentenziano Non licet
esse vos e sollevano così un'obiezione preliminare senza alcuna
preoccupazione di umanità, essi fanno professione di violenza e di tirannide
iniqua, giacché negano ai cristiani il diritto all'esistenza perché essi
vogliono negarlo, non perché ciò non debba esser effettivamente lecito. La
legge è essenzialmente soggetta a variare, e comunque soggiace sempre a una
superiore norma di bene e non può proibire ciò che è bene: "si bonum
invenero esse quod lex prohibuit, nonne ex illo praeiudicio prohibere me non
potest, quod si malum esset iure prohiberet?".
L'esposizione che segue,
riecheggiante spesso i motivi dell'altra opera di T. di poco precedente, Ad
nationes, mira attraverso la confutazione delle accuse tradizionali contro il
cristianesimo e la descrizione della vita e della fede dei cristiani a provare
appunto che niente può riscontrarsi di cattivo in quello che pure la legge
proibisce. Ci si attenderebbe un appello alla clemenza e alla giustizia. Segue
invece una sfida: che i giudici continuino a perseguitare. La loro iniquità è
prova dell'innocenza dei cristiani e giova alla loro causa: "vincimus, cum
occidimur; evadimus, cum obducimur; plures efficimur, quotiens metimur".
Se il suo temperamento e
la sua recente esperienza di convertito, dovevano necessariamente rivolgere
l'attività di T. al compito, che si presentava più urgente, di difendere la
comunità dagli attacchi esterni: la sua sollecitudine per i fratelli nella
fede, la sua sempre preoccupata e passionale partecipazione alla vita intima
della comunità, già chiarissima nella commovente lettera Ai martiri (del
197) che in carcere attendevano la loro sorte, ci è rivelata in pieno da una
serie di trattatelli etico-disciplinari (cronologicamente collocabili fra il
200 e il 212), preziosi oltre tutto a mostrarci l'irreducibile antitesi che
nello spirito di T. si è stabilita fra la sua esperienza religiosa e tutti i
valori sociali, politici e mondani della società circostante. Sia che T. voglia
far risaltare il vero significato dell'iniziazione battesimale (De Baptismo) o
il contenuto del Paternoster (De Oratione); sia che debba tessere
l'elogio della pazienza (De patientia) o presentare la penitenza come seconda e
definitiva possibilità per il peccatore di riscattarsi dalla colpa dopo il
battesimo (De poenitentia); sempre T. ricorda ai fedeli che l'adesione al fatto
cristiano è tutta nel formale impegno preso di procedere per una via
eccezionalmente aspra, ogni più piccola deviazione dalla quale costituisce già
un tradimento. Nessun accomodamento col mondo: non teatri né divertimenti (De
spectaculis), nessuna partecipazione a una vita pubblica che è imbevuta di
idolatria in tutte le sue manifestazioni quotidiane (De idololatria, verso il
211). Con quel sentimento misto di attrazione e di repulsione che è
caratteristico del temperamento fondamentalmente passionale e sensuale di
Tertulliano, egli si indirizza alle donne della comunità per prescrivere loro
la modestia nell'atteggiamento e nella loro acconciatura esteriore (De
virginibus velandis; De cultu foeminarum); alla sua propria moglie per
imporle, con un atteggiamento che mal cela sotto le proposizioni teoriche un
geloso attaccamento personale, di non contrarre nuove nozze, qualora egli fosse
premorto a lei. Ma queste preoccupazioni moralistiche trovano un loro logico
presupposto solo se s'intenda come esse siano soprattutto dominate e suggerite
dal desiderio di premunire la comunità dall'attenuazione dell'aspettativa
escatologica: non è senza significato che questi trattatelli morali di T. siano
coevi di quattro scritti perduti, il titolo dei quali (De censu animae, De
paradiso, De fato, De spe fidelium), insieme con quanto altrimenti
sappiamo dell'escatologia di T., vale a mostrarci quale fosse l'intima
convinzione di T., l'essenza vera e più profonda della sua religiosità. T. cioè
è un millenarista convinto (v. milllenarismo), e lo stesso intransigente
atteggiamento che egli adotterà nella sua polemica contro gli gnostici, e in
genere il suo atteggiamento di fronte al processo di rielaborazione
intellettuale e razionale del messaggio cristiano, è suggerito dal bisogno
istintivo di salvare il suo programma di una morale sanzionata in funzione del
realismo della sua fede escatologica. Sceso in polemica contro la dottrina
dell'eternità della materia difesa da Ermogene (Adversus Hermogenem, verso ïl
206), T. insiste soprattutto sul fatto che Dio non avrebbe mai potuto ricavare
una realtà peritura da una sostanza eterna, mentre Dio ci ha promesso di
suscitare da fattori inferiori realtà maggiori, e precisamente dal corruttibile
e transitorio l'immortale ed eterno. Ma più che nell'Adversus Hermogenem e
nella polemica, tanto vivace e briosa quanto superficiale e disonesta contro i
valentiniani (T. nell'Adversus Valentinianos, del 211 circa, utilizza
chiaramente Ireneo, ma il Valentino da lui preso a partito non ha nulla a che
vedere col Valentino, spiritualissimo predicatore di morale e di salvezza,
rivelato dai frammenti dello gnostico conservatici da Clemente Alessandrino), è
nell'Adversus Marcionem (la terza edizione, a noi giunta, in 5 libri, fu
iniziata fra il 207 e il 208 e conclusa verso il 211) che si rivela in pieno la
mentalità di T. incapace di comprendere la raffinata spiritualità di Marcione,
condotto dalla sua idea dell'assoluta novità e originalità del messaggio
evangelico a separare questo decisamente da ogni altra manifestazlone precedente
della religiosità umana, compresa la manifestazione del Dio creatore
dell'Antico Testamento, e a patrocinare un programma di vita morale
indipendente dalla visuale di ogni sanzione o ricompensa, ma solo improntata
all'infinita bontà e alla misericordia di Cristo (v. anche marcione).
"Udite, udite, peccatori - griderà scandalizzato T. - e voi pure che
ancora non lo siete affinché possiate diventarlo: è stato ritrovato un Dio
migliore del nostro, che non colpisce, non s'adira, non si vendica, a causa del
quale nessun fuoco brucia nella Geenna, per il quale nessuno stridore di denti
agghiaccia nelle tenebre esteriori: è solamente buono. E del resto proibisce di
peccare, ma solo a parole: infatti non vuole il timore. Su dunque: tu, o
Marcione, che non temi Dio perché è buono, perché non ti lasci dominare da ogni
sorta di libidini, perché non pecchi?".
Non a torto T. è stato
definito "il padre della teologia occidentale". Spinto dal desiderio
di mettere in guardia la comunità contro la propaganda gnostica e marcionita,
da T. intese come tentativi d'interpretare il messaggio cristiano alla luce dei
sistemi culturali correnti e che dovevano quindi favorire un pericoloso
riavvicinamento fra la comunità cristiana e la società circostante
("persecutio et martyras facit" - osserverà - haeresis apostatas
tantum") T. scriveva, verso il 200, la sua prima opera antiereticale
(il De prescriptione haereticorum), nella quale, trasferendo genialmente
sul terreno della polemica teologica il principio giuridico romano della longae
possessionis praescriptio, e opponendo alla rivendicazione di possesso della
verità avanzata dagli eretici, la pregiudiziale della sua indisturbata
occupazione da parte della Chiesa, fissava i fondamenti di quella dottrina
della tradizione che, rielaborata da S. Vincenzo di Lérins ("quod semper,
quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est, hoc teneatur"), è alla base
della dogmatica cattolica. Contro Marcione e contro gli gnostici, T. ha difeso
l'idea dell'unità di Dio e della sua rivelazione così nell'Antico come nel
Nuovo Testamento. Contro la speculazione gnostica, che riduceva la funzione
salvatrice del Cristo a una adesione intima al suo insegnamento, T. ha
proclamato la piena realtà della redenzione attraverso l'incarnazione di
Cristo, la sua morte e la sua resurrezione, preludio della resurrezione di
tutti i morti il dì dell'inaugurazione del regno millenario (v.
soprattutto De carne Christi e De resurrectione carnis, del 211
circa). Contro il monarchianismo patripassiano di Prassea che annullava ogni differenza
fra Padre e Figlio, ha difeso (Adversus Praxean. posteriore al 213) una
concezione "economica" della Trinità, per la quale, partendo dal
presupposto del progressivo dispiegamento del divino nel mondo - dalla
creazione, alla redenzione e al fine ultimo dell'umanità - l'unità divina è
affermata come molteplicità d'ipostasi (Tertulliano è il primo ad adoperare,
con giuridica precisione, termini come trinitas, substantia, persona diventati
tecnici della teologia trinitaria occidentale), ognuna in corrispondenza di un
dato momento nell'evoluzione religiosa dell'umanità: trinità di persone che non
è un rinnegamento dell'unità di sostanza divina. Per quanto questa
schematizzazione tertullianea della fede trinitaria non sarebbe stata possibile
senza gli apologisti e Ireneo, per quanto non si possa ragionevolmente negare
la dipendenza di T. dall'Εἰς ?τὴν αἵρεσιν Νοήτον di Ippolito, è certo che essa,
nonostante una tipica connotazione subordinazionistica (v. subordinazionismo)
che la contraddistingue, ha grandemente influito sull'ulteriore svolgimento
della teologia trinitaria occidentale.
Ma accanto alla
segnalazione del contributo portato da T. al processo di enucleazione del dogma
cattolico, è necessario segnalare, per intendere appieno il motivo primo della
religiosità tertullianea e il significato che in essa hanno queste sue
elaborazioni teologiche, che queste sono, tutte, dettate dal realismo della sua
escatologia eudemonistica. Così la tesi della corporeità dell'anima, difesa da
T. nel De anima (del 211 circa), si spiega solo se si tenga presente
che repugnava al grossolano realismo di T. l'idea di un'anima che non potesse
partecipare, per la sua natura, alle gioie del regno o alle sanzioni
degl'inferi. La tesi traducianistica di T., a proposito della trasmissione
dell'anima attraverso la generazione (v. traducianismo), è in funzione
della sua ostilità di fronte alla concezione trascendentale della genesi e
della destinazione dello spirito difesa dagli gnostici, e del bisogno di
stabilire un indissolubile rapporto fra il corpo e l'anima nel piano della
salvezza finale. E così T., condotto dalla logica del suo realismo, si rifiuta
di credere che la nascita di Cristo sia avvenuta al difuori delle leggi di
natura: "si Virgo concepit, in parto suo nupsit... patefacti corporis
lege"; e non sa trattenersi dall'affermare, in stretto collegamento con la
sua dottrina dell'anima, anche una "corporeità, sui generis in
Dio.
Se dunque il motivo primo
e più profondo della religiosità tertullianea è nella sua assoluta e intransigente
fedeltà a un ideale di escatologia realistica, non è difficile comprendere come
di fronte all'evoluzione del cristianesimo verso una sempre più precisa
rielaborazione concettuale della fede e un'organizzazione pratica più salda
delle comunità a tutto scapito di quell'ideale escatologico, abbia finito per
trovarsi sullo stesso piano ideale dei "profeti" montanisti (v. montanismo),
nei quali l'affermazione della libera ispirazione paracletica si accoppiava a
un rifiorire allucinato di speranze apocalittiehe.
Gli ultimi scritti di T.
(fra il 212 e il 222) sono tutti (De fuga in persecutione, Adversus
Praxean - è sintomatico che in questo scritto l'elaborazione della
teologia "economica" proceda di pari passo con la difesa del
montanismo - De Monogamia, De ieiunio, De pudicitia) una
violenta diatriba contro gli "psichici" (così T. definisce i membri
della comunità ufficiale in contrapposizione agli "pneumatici").
Soprattutto importante l'ultimo scritto, De pudicitia, diretto contro
l'editto penitenziale (v. penitenza) di papa Callisto (altri pensa al
vescovo cartaginese Agrippino).
Oltre a quelli già citati
si ricordano anche i seguenti scritti: Adversus Iudaeos (del 200
circa); Adversus Apelleiacos, perduto, contro i seguaci di Apelle
discepolo di Marcione; De Pallio (del 209), che è il più piccolo, il
più difficile e il più tertullianeo degli scritti di T., nel quale egli
giustifica il suo abbandono della toga per rivestire il pallio filosofico: per
quanto il trattatello rappresenti certamente la manifestazione più clamorosa
dello spirito polemico e dell'erudizione letteraria di T., esso non può essere
interpretato come una pura e semplice esercitazione letteraria (G. Boissier; G.
De Labriolle). La sua ispirazione cristiana è stata bene provata da M. Zappalà,
contro la tesi di J. Geffcken che ha visto nello scritto un esempio di diatriba
stoico-cinica e la rielaborazione di una satira di Varrone. Si ricordano ancora
il De exhortatione castitatis (circa il 210), diretto soprattutto
contro le seconde nozze; De corona militis, nel quale T. insorge a
difendere un soldato cristiano che si è rifiutato (211) di coronarsi il capo:
vi è ampiamente svolto il motivo dell'incompatibilità fra professione cristiana
e servizio militare; Scorpiace (211-212), antidoto contro il veleno
dello scorpione, cioè contro la propaganda degli gnostici intesa a svalutare il
merito del martirio; Ad Scapulam (212), lettera aperta nella quale
T., pur già montanista, s'indirizza a nome della comunità e con singolare
violenza di linguaggio, a Scapula proconsole d'Africa per affermare ancora una
volta la liceità della professione cristiana. Con tutta probabilità va
attribuita a T. montanista la famosa Passio Ss. Perpetuae et
Felicitatis. Perduti sono i VII libri De Ecstasi.
La cronologia degli
scritti di T. è assai controversa, scarsissimi i riferimenti interni che
permettano una sicura datazione. Un tentativo eccellente di classificazione
cronologica è stato fatto da E. Nöldechen; partendo dai risultati raggiunti dal
Nöldechen, oggi ancora seguiti, per es., da E. Buonaiuti, P. Monceaux ha
stabilito la cronologia oggi accettata generalmente.
T. è il creatore del
latino ecclesiastico: per quanto sia assai verosimile pensare a un influsso
delle primitive traduzioni latine della Bibbia sulla lingua di T., è innegabile
che le opere di T. hanno un'importanza definitiva nel processo di rinnovamento
subito dalla lingua latina. Naturalmente qui è presupposta la dipendenza dell'Ottavio di
Minucio Felice dall'Apologetico, e non di questo da quello.
La tradizione manoscritta
delle opere di T. è rappresentata da due famiglie di codici: la prima dal
codice Agobardino (Parisinus 1622), così detto dal suo primo possessore
Agobardo, vescovo di Lione (sec. IX); la seconda dal Montepessulanus 307,
dal Paterniacensis 439 (ambedue del sec. XI) e da una serie di mss.
del sec. XV, in grande maggioranza italiani. Un ms. del sec. XII fu ritrovato
da A. Wilmart nella biblioteca di Troyes. Particolare importanza ha la
questione del rapporto fra due codici dell'Apologetico, il Parisinus 1623
(sec. X) e il Fuldensis (smarrito, ma a noi noto attraverso la
collazione fattane verso il 1584 dall'umanista Francesco Modio [François de
Maulde]), che presentano diversità di redazione talmente nette da far pensare a
due edizioni. Fra le varie opinioni sembra oggi prevalente la tesi che vuole
procedere alla ricostruzione del testo con criterî eclettici.
L'editio princeps è
quella di Beato Renano (Basilea 1521). L'unica edizione moderna completa è
ancora quella, non priva di mende ma insostituita, di F. Oehler (voll. 3,
Lipsia 1853-54). Nel Corpus di Vienna sono stati pubblicati, a cura
di A. Reifferscheid e G. Wissowa, il De anima, De baptismo, De
idololatria, De ieiunio, Ad nationes, De oratione, De
pudicitia, Scorpiace, De spectaculis, De testimonio animae (XX,
Vienna 1890), e a cura di E. Kroymann, Adversus Hermogenem, De
praescriptione haereticorum, Adversus Praxean, De resurrectione
carnis (XLVII, Vienna 1906).
Edizioni di scritti
singoli: Apologetico: testo e apparato critico, traduzione francese e
commentario analitico grammaticale e storico a cura di I.P. Waltzing (Parigi
1919; 2a ed. del testo e trad. con la collab. di A. Severyns nei classici
de Les Belles Lettres, Parigi 1929; 2a ed. del commentario, Parigi
1931); a cura di E. Löfstedt, Lund 1915; a cura di A. Souter, Londra 1926; a
cura di S. Colombo, Torino 1927; a cura di J. Martin, Bonn 1933 (Florilegium
patristicum, n. 6); Apologetico e De Spectaculis con trad.
inglese a cura di T. R. Glover, Londra 1931; De spectaculis, a cura di A.
Boulanger, Parigi 1933; Ad nationes, a cura di J. G. Borleffs, Leida
1929; De corona militis, a cura di J. Marra, Torino 1927; De cultu
foeminarum, a cura dello stesso, Torino 1930; De baptismo, a cura di J. G.
Borleffs, Leida 1931; De anima, a cura di J. H. Waszink, Amsterdam
1933; De praescriptione, a cura di J. Martin, Bonn 1930; De oratione,
a cura di R. W. Muncey, Londra 1926; De poenitentia e De
pudicitia a cura di E. Preuschen, 2a ed., Tubinga 1910; a cura di G.
Rauschen, Bonn 1915; De poenitentia, con utilizzazione del ms. di Troyes,
a cura di J. G. Borleffs, in Mnemosyne, 1933, pp.1-64.
Bibl.: Scritti generali:
O. Bardenhewer, Geschichte d. altkirchl. Litt., II, 2a ed., Friburgo
in B. 1914, p. 377 segg.; P. Monceaux, Hist. litt. de l'Afrique chrét.,
I, T. et les origines, Parigi 1901; E. Buonaiuti, Il Cristianesimo
nell'Africa Romana, Bari 1928, pp. 37-225; H. Koch, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl.,
V A, coll. 822-844; E. Nöldechen, I, Gotha 1890. Scritti di carattere particolare:
H. Hoppe, Syntax und Stil des T., Lipsia 1903; A. D'Alès, La
Théologie de Tertullien, Parigi 1905; H. Hoppe, Tertullianea, Bielefeld
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critica del testo, Firenze 1934, p. 16 seg. Si vedano inoltre le bibliografie
citate sotto marcione; montanismo; e quelle delle altre voci cui si
rinvia nel testo.© Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni
Treccani - Riproduzione riservata
SOURCE : https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/quinto-settimio-florenzio-tertulliano_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/
Œuvres de
Tertullien, Traduites en Français, Eugène-Antoine
DE GENOUDE. Seconde Edition, 1852. Publication, Paris, Louis Vivès,
1852 : http://www.tertullian.org/french/french.htm
Apologétique. Apologie du Christianisme. Écrite en l'an 197 après J. -C. Traduction littérale par J.-P. WALTZING : http://www.tertullian.org/french/apologeticum.htm
Voir aussi : http://jesusmarie.free.fr/tertullien.html
